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I am a regular participant in the Bankrate.com Mortgage Rate Trend survey and this week's survey is now available.

The Bankrate.com survey is for conforming mortgages.  It does not apply to FHA mortgages, VA mortgages, or jumbo mortgages.  For rate quotes, .

Here are the group's 30-day mortgage rate predictions:

I am predicting that rates will increase over the next 30 days, but my prediction may not be appropriate for your individual situation.  And it may be wrong, too.

Here's what I told Bankrate.com:

"Soon, fears of inflation will resurface."

Inflation is the enemy of mortgage rates.  When inflation is present, mortgage rates rise. This is because mortgage bond repayments are made in U.S. dollars and inflation makes those dollars worth less to the end-investors.

Inflation used to be a concern in the mortgage markets.  It's a major reason why rates tocuhed 7.000 percent this past summer.  But as the summer wore on, evidence of economic implosion began to surface.  Near the end of Q3, markets shifted their attention from inflation to deflation -- the Fed Funds Rate was 2.000 percent at the time and the TARP had yet to be conceived.

Since that shift, the government has been one massive stimulus machine; a series of seemingly uncoordinated, non-linear interventions.  If you were looking for winning choreography, the goverment would probably place second to these folks.

Just a sampling of the government Kitchen Sink approach to-date includes:

• Bank rescues for $350 billion
• Fed Funds Rate cuts of nearly 2.000 percent
• $800 billion pledged for buying mortgage-backed bonds
• Separate promises to the auto, credit card and student loan sectors

Looking at these steps as a whole is reminscent of a woodsman trying to keep a flame alive, throwing kindle on the embers in hopes of starting something.  As most people know, though, too much kindle on there and the flame becomes a raging fire, burning really hard, and then burning out.

Immediately after the Fed's rate cut this week, mortgage rates plunged. Since then, however, fears of inflation have settled in.  Markets are nowdebating the long-term impact of the government's policies and it's causing mortgage rates to return to the pre-Fed cut levels.

Those stories you keep reading about "low mortgage rates"?  Fuggedaboudit.

Rates gave up all of their gains by this morning and are poised to move higher still.   It's an eerily similar pattern to what we saw in January of this year after the Fed's "surprise" rate cut.  In those next 30 days, mortgage rates went something-something.  And yet, many people are still holding out.

My advice: Don't hold out.  Take what you can now.

To the tuned-in rate shopper, sharp drops in mortgage rates are signals to buy, not signals to "start shopping".  This is because astute observers know that when a market gets shook to its core, it always bounces back to find equilibrium and that balance point is rarely lower than the initial trading-on-emotion response.

In the meanwhile, I post mid-day mortgage rates updates on my Twitter feed. Follow me at http://www.twitter.com/mortgagereports and join the conversation anytime.

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Dan Green is an active loan officer. Email or call 513-443-2020. Dan is on Twitter at @mortgagereports.