Mortgage rates rise after Fed meeting

Mortgage rates edged up this week after the Federal Reserve decided it would not cut its key interest rate in the face of inflation worries, according to surveys conducted by Freddie Mac and Bankrate.com.

In Freddie Mac's survey, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose to an average 6.4 percent, up from 6.36 percent last week, while the 15-year fixed-rate mortgage inched up to an average 6.1 percent from last week's 6.06 percent.  more...

Slowdown in title business hurts Fidelity's earnings

Fidelity National Financial saw third-quarter profits fall by 40 percent to $127.6 million, despite laying off 650 workers in its title division and revenue growth in its information services division.

The slowdown in the housing market drove the drop in earnings, from $2.99 per share in the third quarter of 2005 to $2.02 in the latest quarter, said Chairman and Chief Executive Officer William P. Foley II.  more...

New-home sales, prices drop in September

The median price of new houses sold in September dropped 9.7 percent and the sales rate fell about 14.2 percent compared to September 2005, the U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development reported today.

Sales of new single-family houses in September 2006 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of about 1.08 million, which is 5.3 percent above the revised August rate. The seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of September was 557,000.  more...

American Home boosts profits amid rising delinquencies

American Home Mortgage Investment Corp.  more...

Inflation puts drag on hiring

A key indicator that measures job offerings in major U.S. newspapers held steady in September, as inflation worries impacted hiring plans, The Conference Board reported today.

The Help-Wanted Advertising Index registered 30 last month, unchanged from August but still much lower than the 37 reading reported a year earlier.

In the last three months, help-wanted advertising declined in all nine U.S. regions. Steepest declines occurred in the West South Central (-17.5 percent), South Atlantic (-14.6 percent), and West North Central (-13.7 percent) regions.  more...

Overnight real estate rates steady

Long-term mortgage interest rates were flat Wednesday, and the benchmark 10-year Treasury bond yield dropped to 4.76 percent.

The 30-year fixed-rate average held at 5.94 percent, and the 15-year fixed rate dipped to 5.65 percent. The 1-year adjustable was down at 5.37 percent.

The 30-year Treasury bond yield decreased to 4.88 percent.

Rates are current as of 7:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

Mortgage rate figures are according to Bankrate.com, which publishes nightly averages based on its survey of 4,000 banks in 50 states.  more...

Zillow gives away content

Zillow announced today that other Web sites can now recreate the company's functionality on their domain so that real estate agents, for example, could include detailed information from Zillow's database of 68 million homes on their own Web sites.

Third-party consumer Web sites can incorporate Zillow's API, which stands for Application Programming Interface, into their pages for free.

Zillow.com launched in beta, or test form, in February and includes home valuations and data on U.S. homes.  more...

Second-home owners may focus less on primary residences

Those who own second homes are more likely to reduce spending on their primary residence relative to their income than those who do not own second homes, according to a study by Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies.

The study uses economic models to measure "income elasticity of demand," which is a gauge of consumer response in s  more...