CNNMoney - July 31, 2008: 11:14 AM EDT

Freddie Mac says 30-year fixed rate fell to 6.52% as the price of oil and gasoline fell this week.

By Kenneth Musante, CNNMoney.com staff writer

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Mortgage rates fell slightly this week according to a weekly report released Wednesday, as lower oil prices briefly ease fears of price inflation.

The Primary Mortgage Market Survey from mortgage finance company Freddie Mac said that rates of 30-year fixed-rate mortgages (FRMs) averaged 6.52% for the week ended July 31 with an average 0.7 point discount, down from an average 6.63% last week, and down from an average of 6.68% recorded during the same week last year.

The 15-year FRM averaged 6.07% this week with an average of 0.6 point, down from 6.18% last week, and down from 6.32% last year.

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CNNMoney - Special Report Mortgage Meltdown, Last Updated: July 30, 2008: 10:29 AM EDT

The legislation devotes $300 billion to helping troubled homeowners avoid foreclosure. See if you qualify.

By Les Christie, CNNMoney.com staff writer

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — President Bush signed a $300 billion housing rescue bill Wednesday aimed at helping troubled homeowners avoid foreclosure and supporting mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

After the law kicks in on Oct. 1, thousands of at-risk borrowers will be able to refinance their unaffordable old mortgages into new low-cost fixed-rate loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA).

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BUSINESSWEEK - Technology July 30, 2008, 12:01AM EST

The housing bust is driving loads of traffic to related Web sites, from one that searches for foreclosure lawyers to others that give timely tips

by Catherine Holahan

Even some of Wall Street’s biggest bears were taken aback by a recent report showing a surge in second-quarter home foreclosures. But the dour news was no surprise to Mark Britton, who runs Avvo.com, a Web site that lets users rate attorneys. Searches for foreclosure lawyers on Avvo had skyrocketed eightfold in six months. “A lot of people are hurting out there,” says Britton.

Effects of the housing bust are showing up all over the Web. As the number of foreclosures has increased—they’re up 53% in the past year, says online real estate database RealtyTrac—consumers are scouring the Web for help navigating the subprime mortgage morass. In June, 1.82 billion people searched for the term “foreclosure,” according to research firm comScore (SCOR), which launched a search marketing tool last year to track searches. That’s an increase of 117% from 12 months earlier.

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CNNMoney - Special Report Mortgage Meltdown, Last Updated: July 30, 2008: 11:12 AM EDT

President enacts controversial measure that aims to help borrowers, bolster the housing market and provide a fail-safe for Fannie and Freddie.

By Jeanne Sahadi, CNNMoney.com senior writer

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — President Bush on Wednesday signed into law a sweeping housing bill that aims to boost the struggling housing market and bolster mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The Senate voted 72-13 in favor of the bill on Saturday, after the House passed it three days earlier.

“We look forward to put in place new authorities to improve confidence and stability in markets, and to provide better oversight for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,” said White House spokesman Tony Fratto. “The Federal Housing Administration will begin to implement new policies intended to keep more deserving American families in their homes.”

The new law, one of the most far-reaching on housing in decades, marks the centerpiece of Washington’s efforts to address the nation’s housing meltdown.

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International Herald Tribune - U.S. BAILOUT PLAN, Published: July 29, 2008

By Martin Mayer

SHELTER ISLAND, New York: Congress has given the Bush White House yet another chance to operate outside the Constitution. Unsurprisingly, the administration has taken it. The Treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, now has the go-ahead for his two-part plan to salvage Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage companies - a blueprint that violates fundamental American principles in two worrisome ways.

First, the Treasury will be allowed to advance money to Fannie and Freddie (and even to buy their stocks) in unlimited quantities to keep them afloat - in any fashion Paulson sees fit. Yet the Constitution requires that “no money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law.” Even in wartime, budgets for the military specify how much is to be spent for what purposes.

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International Herald Tribune - Published: July 29, 2008

A customer who withdrew $16,000 from the Indymac Bank of IndyMac Bancorp after the bank was seized this month by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (Joshua Lott/Bloomberg News )

By Vikas Bajaj

PASADENA, California: After his mortgage company nearly crashed a decade ago, Michael Perry set a new course. He bought a bank so the company, soon renamed IndyMac Bank, would never run short of money again.

The financial world now knows how this story ended. Just before 3 p.m. on July 11, federal regulators arrived at Perry’s headquarters here and seized IndyMac, which was buckling under its burden of bad loans. The debacle, one of the biggest bank failures in American history, could cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. as much as $8 billion. Shareholders have been all but wiped out.

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Newsweek - FINANCE, Updated: 5:03  p.m. ET Jul 17, 2008

By Daniel Gross | Newsweek Web Exclusive

With the failure last week of California bank IndyMac, deposit insurance is suddenly a matter of significant concern. On Wednesday, NEWSWEEK columnist Daniel Gross sat down in Chicago with Sheila Bair, chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), where she was on the first stop of a four-city roadshow to commemorate the agency’s 75th anniversary and promote confidence in the ailing banking sector. NEWSWEEK asked Bair how many more banks might fall in the wake of the subprime mortgage mess, whether or not the FDIC really has enough cash to insure depositors and what keeps regulators like her up at night. Excerpts:

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