The market says no

You could see this one coming. The Fed has cut rates but so far, mortgage rates have remained high. Could it be something to do with risk?

The Fed's effort to bail out the credit crisis and Housing crash has run into an odd problem: Despite cutting rates 225 basis points since September, mortgage rates have actually gone up. "The Fed's efforts so far to soften the blow of the housing slump with lower interest rates appear to be having a muted effect. Since September, the Fed has reduced its target for short-term interest rates by 2.25 percentage points to 3%. But some mortgage rates are actually rising, and those that are falling haven't fallen that much.

The average interest rate on a standard 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 6.38% yesterday, little changed from September but up from 5.61% in late January, according to HSH Associates, a mortgage-data publisher in Pompton Plains, N.J. Interest rates on so-called jumbo mortgages -- those larger than $417,000 -- were at 7.35%, also close to their September levels.