By Greg Ip
Sunday, January 11, 2009
In its battle against the financial crisis, the U.S. government has extended its full faith and credit to an ever-growing swath of the private sector: first homeowners, then banks, now car companies. Soon, President-elect Barack Obama will put the government credit card to work with a massive fiscal boost for [...]
WASHINGTON – Jan. 8, 2009 – Federal Reserve officials worried about the possibility of a “prolonged contraction” and destabilizing deflation in mid-December when they voted to cut a key interest rate to a historically low range of zero to a quarter-point.
According to minutes of the Fed’s Dec. 15-16 meeting, released Tuesday, central bank economists sharply [...]
WASHINGTON - Jan. 5, 2009 - Rates on 30-year mortgages fell to a record low for the third straight week and borrowers took advantage of the drop, sending new applications soaring.
With the Federal Reserve on the verge of pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into the devastated U.S. housing market, mortgage rates have plunged to [...]
WASHINGTON – Dec. 8, 2008 – After the government announced last month that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would take new steps to modify tens of thousands of mortgages to make them more affordable, some executives expressed concerns that the moves could weaken their already struggling companies.
Fannie Mae’s chief executive, Herbert M. Allison Jr., acknowledged [...]
By Gregory Arzumanov
TAMPA, Fla. - Dec. 1, 2008 - Tiffany Edwards thought she was running out of time to persuade her lender to work out a new loan so her growing family could stay in their Tampa home.
She had been out of work for more than a year, and her husband’s income wasn’t enough to [...]
By Gregory Arzumanov
WASHINGTON - Dec. 1, 2008 - Rates on 30-year mortgages sank for a fourth straight week, falling below 6 percent for the first time since early October, and are heading lower due to the government’s massive new effort to aid the U.S. housing market.
Further drops are likely, analysts said, reflecting the market’s positive [...]
By Gregory Arzumanov
Nov. 14, 2008 - Sometimes Tim Wells felt like the only man left on his street.
Thousands of soldiers were deployed out of Fort Campbell, Ky., just a few miles away, and homes in Wells’ subdivision were sitting empty. But a few months later the soldiers began to return and, one by [...]
By Gregory Arzumanov -
Nov. 14, 2008 - Mortgage rates dropped for a second straight week, reflecting the impact the weakening economy is having on financial markets.
Freddie Mac, the mortgage giant, reported Thursday that rates on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages averaged 6.14 percent this week, down from 6.20 percent last week. It marked a sharp decline [...]
WASHINGTON (AP) – Nov. 7, 2008 – Mortgage rates dropped this week, providing a dose of welcome news to prospective homebuyers.
Freddie Mac, the mortgage giant, reported Thursday that rates on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages averaged 6.20 percent for the week ending Nov. 6. That was down sharply from 6.46 percent last week.
The retreat in mortgages rates [...]
ORLANDO, Fla. – Nov. 7, 2008 – Pending home sales fell on the heels of a strong gain a month earlier as credit tightened and economic conditions deteriorated, according to the National Association of Realtors® (NAR).
The Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator based on contracts signed in September, declined 4.6 percent to 89.2 from [...]