Mortgage expert David Reed invites Walletpop readers to ask him questions about real estate financing. leave your questions in the comment section of this post.

Q: The Fed has reduced rates by three full percentage points since last September. I have been following long term mortgage rates for quite some time. 15 and 30 year fixed rate mortgages are only .25% lower than they were last September. No one I ask seems to know why mortgage rates are still so high and happen to be rising as I write this. The current yield on the 10 year bond is 3.83, up from 3.47 early last week. My question is this. Do you think we will see lower mortgage rates in the future? - Carl

A: Carl -- good question. No, I really don't see lower rates in the future, certainly not anything like three percentage points. If 30-year and 15-year fixed rates do fall they might go down another 1/4 to 1/2% but nothing near to what the Fed has done with the Fed Funds Rate.

The fact is that the Fed has very little to do with fixed mortgage rates. Surprised?

Mortgage expert David Reed invites Walletpop readers to ask him questions about real estate financing. leave your questions in the comment section of this post.

Discount Points, or simply "points," is another of the slough of terms rarely heard outside the home loan process. Do you think lenders just make up all those foreign terms to try and confuse us? Possibly. Even so, this particular term deserves some attention because it affects what your monthly payments will be on your new mortgage.

A point represents 1% of your loan amount. For a loan amount of $250,000 one point would equal $2,500. A point is sometimes called a discount point because the point is used to discount your interest rate that you use to calculate your mortgage payment. How much does it discount your rate?