Are mortgage rates going up? Are mortgage rates going down? I am a regular participant in the Bankrate.com Mortgage Rate Trend survey and this week's survey may point you in the right direction.

The Bankrate.com survey is for conforming mortgages only. It is not specific to Cincinnati, nor does not apply to FHA mortgages, VA mortgages, jumbo mortgages, or super jumbo mortgages. For a personal rate offer, .

Here's the group's 30-day prediction for mortgage rates:

• 21% predict mortgage rates will increase
• 29% predict mortgage rates will decrease
• 50% predict mortgage rates will remain unchanged

I expect mortgage rates to remain unchanged over the next 30 days.

My advice not be appropriate for your individual situation and I'm not always right. Ultimately, your next 3 minutes, 18 seconds may have been better spent watching this Batman video than reading my commentary.

Either way, here's what I told Bankrate.com:

"Mortgage markets enter a period of wait-and-see. Take your gains and lock 'em in, folks."

It's been a good few weeks for mortgage rates.  While Wall Street waits for definitive data on the economy, traders have tended to take safe positions in the mortgage-backed securities market.

Traders appear to believe the Federal Reserve's assessment about the economy picking up, but, nonetheless, they're making careful hedges with their bets. Furthermore, inflation appears contained (for now) and the U.S. dollar is recovering from its late-Summer beatdown.

It's all helped push mortgage rates to their lowest levels since around the time the Phillies first took first place.

This is about as far as we'll go.

In looking at the data and the charts, there's lots of reasons why mortgage rates could rise in the coming month but not a lot of reason why they could fall.  This is Reason #1 why it may be prudent to lock in your rate this week.  Reason #2 is because of  mortgage guidelines.

Both conventional and FHA guidelines are tightening in the coming weeks.

So, if you kept betting that rates would fall in September, you were right.  But now, with mortgage rates hanging near the recent lows, it's a terrific time to take your chips off the table and get locked in.  All it's going to take is a strong jobs report or something similar to send rates soaring.

Rates may go up, but they certainly won't come down.  And because you don't get access to real-time mortgage-backed pricing like I do, consider hiring me as your loan officer to track and lock rates for you. I watch mortgage markets on a real-time basis and am happy to share what I know. It's news you can't get from the papers or from TV.

Plus, my rates are really good.

If you're not already committed to a loan officer, or call me so we can work together. I'd welcome it.

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