Loan Resource

Mortgage rates climbed this week after trending lower recently, Freddie Mac said Thursday, after Federal Reserve said it continues to worry about the threat of inflation. The average rate on 30-year fixed-rate loans was 6.21 percent for the week ending May 16, up from 6.15 the previous week, the mortgage finance firm said. Last year at this time, 30-year mortgage rates averaged 6.60 percent. "Mortgage rates inched up this week following the Federal Open Market Committee statement reiterat

The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill Wednesday cracking down on conflicts of interest in the $85 billion student loan market amid a widening scandal. Adopted by a 414-3 vote, the bill would require colleges and lenders to abide by new codes of conduct; ban gifts from lenders to college aid officers; require disclosure of college-lender relationships; and protect students from aggressive marketing practices. Investigations by Congress and New York Attorney Genera

Financial aid officers don't always act in the student's best interests. Here's how to protect yourself. For students who plan to borrow for college, choosing a lender has become a lot more complicated. In March a scandal erupted when New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo launched an investigation into allegations that student loan companies provided kickbacks to university financial aid officers and staffers in order to win more business. One key goal was to gain a spot on s

Home prices are expected to finish down for the year, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) said Tuesday, which would mark the first drop since the group started tracking values in 1968. NAR projects a 1 percent decline in the median price of an existing single-family home, to $219,800. The group, in a forecast made a month ago, had previously been expecting a 0.7 percent decline. Prior to that, it had expected a gain of 1.2 percent. The number of home sales is also expected to dip

Washington Mutual Inc. has begun offering a new mortgage and home equity line of credit bundled into a single loan that allows customers to reset interest rates or switch between fixed and adjustable rates up to twice a year without having to refinance. The Seattle-based thrift said WaMu Mortgage Plus is designed to help consumers take advantage of changes in their financial needs or market conditions without having to bother with mounds of refinancing paperwork or steep fees. “We constru

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Problems in subprime mortgages caused a sharp drop in home sellers being able to find buyers for their homes in March, according to a trade group report Tuesday that showed the battered real estate market was much weaker than expected. The National Association of Realtors' Pending Home Sales Index fell 4.9 percent in March, following a 1.1 percent increase in February. The index was down 10.5 percent from the March 2006 reading. Economists surveyed by Briefing.co

Amid all the criticism of private equity, none perhaps has been as scathing as this: Buyout firms above all want to enrich themselves and their investors - and often cut thousands of jobs in the process. The Service Employees International Union, which represents about 1.8 million workers in the U.S. and Canada, published a report last week that criticized the private equity industry for not doing more to measure the impact buyouts have on jobs and communities. United Auto Workers union Pr