This is the second-best one minute summary you'll get all day.  What's the first? 

The advertisement shown at right ran in Saturday's Cincinnati Enquirer.  I'm using it to illustrate why you can't rely on your local paper's mortgage rate information.

This is not a dig on the Enquirer, by the way. A similar ad ran in the Chicago Tribune this weekend, and also in nearly every other American hometown paper.

This is not critique of the newspaper that run the ads as much as it is a critique of the mortgage companies that advertise in such a forum. 

Mortgage lenders know newspaper advertising is crap with respect to conforming mortgage rates because those types of rates change daily. Sometimes up to 5 times daily.  And lenders know this. 

Lenders know that they'll never have to honor their advertised rates because by the time consumers see the ad, the market will have already changed.  The lender can then try to sell a different rate with different points, too.

And, the "out" for these companies its right there in plain view.  "Rates as of 3/23/09", it says, but the paper doesn't publish until 3/28/09.  That's a 5-day lag.

Years ago, newspaper advertising was probably an effective (and honorable) way to reach consumers.  Mortgage rates rarely changed and homeowners couldn't do real-time research on the Internet.  Today, however, with mortgage rates fluid and mortgage information readily available online, the "old way" of advertising runs a vintage McDonalds ad -- out-of-touch and a little bit creepy.

Not every print-advertsing lender is nefarious, but with so many other ways for homeowners to research mortgages and shop for rates, it's a wonder anyone would rely on their weekend Real Estate section as gospel.

You're already doing research online. Stick to it -- the markets move too fast to track mortgages anywhere else. Watch blogs, watch newsites, watch websites.