Mortgage rates headed up as Fannie and Freddie struggle

As we've said ad nauseum, the Fed can only do so much with interest rates.  They can cut the living daylights out of the short term rate, driving down things like credit cards and HELOCs and pushing up things like food prices; but they don't control the long-term interest rates associated with most mortgages.  So it makes perfect sense to us here at Blown Mortgage that long-term mortgage rates are racing upwards as worries of inflation and problems with the GSE's put a premium on long-term risk. From the New York Times: The average interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages rose to 6.71 percent on Tuesday, from 6.44 percent on Friday, according to HSH Associates, a publisher of consumer rates. The average rate for so-called jumbo loans, which cannot be sold to Fannie Mae and