Last month I launched a financial education website called Start With the House.

Why that name? I believe that if you start with the house (location, sales price and mortgage) when planning your financial life, you’ll be more likely to achieve the rest of your financial priorities.

Start With the House is built on the latest technology -- a Web 2.0 blogsite with new information on home buying, mortgages, refinancing, wealth building, and developing a mortgage strategy added every few days.

If you're interested in daily updates on interest rates follow me on Twitter @TomTousignant or subscribe to my blog for information on the topics mentioned above.

Here's where you can help: Are you a financial services professional or do you know one with mortgage-related expertise? I'm looking for a pool of professionals to guest blog on topics like insurance strategies, wealth accumulation and financial safety and tax strategies. All part of making Start With the House a robust and timely resource for financial decision making.

Last year interest rates weren’t really a factor – people who were buying houses did, and those who needed to refinance out of an ARM or to pay off debts were able to. Since December, however, it’s been a whole new ballgame. Rates dropped to the lowest point in 50 years and virtually everyone could have benefited from refinancing. In the past few weeks, rates suddenly jumped up to a point higher for most people.

What gives? Luckily you don't need an advanced degree in mathematics to understand what's going on. Mortgage rates are a function of the Federal Reserve Bank's monetary policy, the law of supply and demand, and government policy/intervention therefore:

• Rates were at a historic low from 3/18-5/26/09 because the Fed was buying a lot of mortgage bonds ( in order to increase demand), which drove rates down
• Eight weeks of low rates led to high loan volumes, so when FannieMae took the new mortgage bonds to the street, the Fed couldn’t keep up with the newly added supply. Excess supply led to lower bond prices, so higher interest rates resulted
• Enter geopolitics: economists started publicly worrying about inflation at the same time foreign bond buyers began wondering whether US bondholders' rights would be honored or the government would begin treating them as GM and Chrysler. Liquidity went down, hence rates went up.

But what's it really matter? Rates are still much lower than last year and home prices in many areas are lower than last year. The Fed is still committed to buying mortgage bonds to keep rates low.

As the recent supply is soaked up by the market, we may see rates trickle back down. People who didn’t get to take advantage of May’s rates may want to be ready to pull the trigger next time there is a dip, even if we don’t hit all the way to the 50-year lows again.

If you want to hedge that they might dip again, call me and we'll get your credit pulled, your home appraised and everything ready so that we can pull the trigger on a moment's notice.

Until the sub-prime loan debacle, mortgage shoppers could choose between working with a retail bank, a retail mortgage broker and a mortgage banker.

I used to be a retail mortgage broker myself, but now I'm a mortgage banker. Here's why: there are four Ps involved in choosing the best mortgage source, and mortgage bankers have the best chance to optimize all four.

Product Options Is the loan fixed rate or adjustable? Is the loan amount too high or too low for a lender? Does the credit score or property type fit within a lender’s guidelines? Not every lender has a home for every loan, so it’s critical in today’s restricted markets to have more than one outlet for a loan.

Process Control Who controls the process? Banks employ their own processors, underwriters and closers. Brokers send their files to a bank. Who's making the underwriting decisions? How quickly can they get the loan closed? Dealing with a lot of players can be confusing and cumbersome.

Price Options What is the cost to a lender to acquire you as a customer? Are they sponsoring golf tournaments or sports stadiums to build name recognition? Those sponsor dollars have to come from somewhere, including higher interest rates on loans. No one has a monopoly on the best price, and banks change their pricing from day to day. Having options for different lenders gives a borrower and their mortgage professional the best opportunity to secure the most competitive price.

Who's best? Your local retail bank should excel with process, since they employ the underwriters and processors. But they are limited on the products and prices to what their institution authorizes -- usually one product per credit tier or loan term.

Retail mortgage brokers are virtually extinct in the wake of the shenanigans of the sub-prime meltdown -- retail banks don't want anything to do with them.

Mortgage bankers are a hybrid of retail banker and mortgage broker.  Because we control the process through closing and work with a variety of lenders, we usually offer the best products and pricing.  With a mortgage banker, you've got three of the four Ps covered.

People Options The mortgage professional is the the fourth P. This person is going to assist you with what may be the largest transaction in your life. Make sure this person is experienced, dedicated, available and knowledgeable – not just hiding behind a claim of best price, product or process. They need all three and more to really help you come out ahead.

For a table of the Four P tradeoffs, here's a blog post.

A newsletter can't (and shouldn't try) to tell everything about the right mortgage strategy.  That's why I launched Start With the House.  Please visit the site, and if you like what you see, tell a friend who might be in the market for a home or new mortgage. 

Thanks!