If you spend time researching mortgage rates online, you'll eventually trip onto one of the following Web sites that tout "national rates" for mortgage borrowers:

• Freddie Mac's Weekly Mortgage Rates
• Bankrate.com's National Overnight Average
• HSH's Mortgage Rate Survey

Unfortunately, none of the rates quoted on these sites are especially helpful to mortgage-shopping Americans.  If you're looking for an actual mortgage rate quote, you're going to have to speak with a loan officer, or use on an online mortgage approval system to get one.

Mortgage rate surveys don't help rate shoppers because getting an accurate quote is like buying a suit -- there's two parts to the process:

1. The "base rate" of the mortgage is the suit you buy off-the-rack
2. The "adjustments" to the mortgage are the tailoring of the suit to your needs

As for determining the base rate, it is what it is.  Wall Street sets it and we all have to make like the dude.  Adjustments, on the other hand, are a different story. 

Mortgage lenders make adjustments to base mortgage rates for all sorts of things.  Some you're probably aware of, but most you probably aren't:

• How big (or small) is your loan size? 
• What is your credit score?
• What is your property type?
• What is your specific loan-to-value?
• Are you paying PMI or having the lender pay it?

And, perhaps the most overlooked reason for adjustment: In what state do you live?

Because of these adjustments to the "base mortgage rate", we can pretty certain that "going rate" mortgage surveys are nothing, if not incomplete.  A borrower's true rate is not going to be reflected at the Freddie Mac Web site, or on Bankrate.com, or anywhere else -- it's only going to come from a mortgage lender that has asked specific mortgage-related questions.

Heck, the sites aren't even good for a "ballpark rate" anymore because loan-level pricing adjustments made that impossible. 

The best use of mortgage rate surveys is to help rate shoppers get a feel for overall mortgage rate movement over time -- are rates generally moving higher, or lower, or staying flat? 

Otherwise, they're quotes out of context.

(Image courtesy: Freddie Mac)