You can refinance your mortgage now without regrets later.

Byline: Jeff Brown

Say, what's going on here? Last week, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates, but mortgage rates are going up?

That's right. The bottom line is that if you're home-shopping this spring, or thinking of refinancing your mortgage, you might as well go out and lock in a rate right now.

A week ago, the Fed made its fifth interest-rate cut of the year, dropping the fed funds rate a half percentage point to 4 percent, down from 6.5 percent at the start of the year.

But three days later, Freddie Mac, the government-authorized mortgage financing company, reported that the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage had risen to 7.14 percent, from 7.10 percent a week earlier.

The problem is that the Fed controls only short-term interest rates, while mortgage rates tend to mirror long-term bonds, such as the 10-year…