| NAB hikes rates
THERE'S more pain in store for home buyers, with National Australia Bank raising interest rates out of the blue yesterday afternoon. NAB hiked the interest rates on its standard variable home loans by another nine basis points to 9.36 per cent - even though there has been no movement in the Reserve Bank's official interest rate. Other financial institutions are expected to follow suit. NAB's latest rate rise came almost three weeks after it became the the first of the big banks to pass on the increase in the official cash rate imposed by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) this month. .
Mortgage Rates Still Cling To 6% Despite Easier Credit
Mortgage rates remained near 6% this week--and are even up slightly from the previous week--despite Federal Reserve efforts to push interest rates lower. A 30-year fixed-rate mortgage currently costs 5.68 percent, slightly above the 5.66 percent a week ago, according to Bankrate.com. The rate has fallen a bit, though, since hitting 5.74 percent just before the Fed announced a three-quarter-point rate cut last Tuesday. .
Subprime crisis spurs sheriff to postpone foreclosure sales
With growing concern from City Council about the subprime-mortgage crisis sweeping the country, Sheriff John Green yesterday delayed next month's sale of homes in foreclosure. Green said he will ask Common Pleas President Judge C. Darnell Jones for permission to halt sheriff's sales for six months. This action comes as the number of sheriff's sales in the city has been steadily falling since the last moratorium four years ago. In March 2004, 588 homes were scheduled for auction in March. Last March, 478 homes were scheduled for sheriff's sales. "We've had a continuous decrease through education and counseling" that allow homebuyers to avoid default, Green said. But City Council members Marian Tasco and Curtis Jones warn of a looming threat, despite assurances at a public hearing last month from state officials that Pennsylvania and Philadelphia are weathering the subprime storm.
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