The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage fell back down to 3.94 percent, the record low set earlier in the fall.
Low rates offer a historic opportunity for those who can afford to buy or refinance. Still, few people are able to take advantage of the record-low rates or have already done so.
The rate on the 30-year home loan fell from 3.99 percent the previous week, Freddie Mac said Thursday. The 3.94 percent average is the lowest on records dating to the 1950s.
The average on the 15-year fixed mortgage fell to 3.21 percent from 3.27 percent. That’s also a record.
Rates have been below 5 percent for all but two weeks this year. Even so, this year could end up as the worst for home sales in 14 years.
Low mortgage rates have failed to energize sales. Sales of previously occupied homes are just slightly ahead of last year’s dismal sales figures _ and those were the worst in 13 years. New-home sales appear headed for their worst year on records dating back half a century.
Mortgage applications have risen slightly in recent weeks but are up from extremely low levels, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.
High unemployment and scant wage gains have made it harder for many people to qualify for loans. Many Americans don’t want to sink money into a home that could lose value over the next three to four years.
The average on the 30-year fixed loan has been below 5 percent for all but two weeks in the past year instant payday loans. And many homeowners who have the necessary credit and home equity to refinance already have.
To calculate average the rates, Freddie Mac surveys lenders across the country Monday through Wednesday of each week.
Some lenders have reported an increase in applications through the Obama administration’s refinancing program. That program was broadened in October to allow up to 1 million more homeowners lower their mortgage payments. But the MBA said such government-assisted loans account for just a small portion of refinancings.
The average rates don’t include extra fees, known as points, which most borrowers must pay to get the lowest rates. One point equals 1 percent of the loan amount.
The average fee for the 30-year loan rose to 0.8 from 0.7; the average on the 15-year fixed mortgage was unchanged at 0.8.
For the five-year adjustable loan, the average rate fell to 2.86 percent from 2.93 percent. The average on the one-year adjustable loan ticked up to 2.81 percent from 2.8 percent.
The average fee on the five-year loan rose from 0.5 to 0.6. And the fee on the one-year adjustable loan was unchanged at 0.6.
A funny thing happened here in the past few years. More young adults moved into the St. Louis region than moved out.
Not as many as in some so-called “cooler” cities, and maybe only because fewer people were moving in general from 2008 to 2010 as the nation wrestled with a deep recession and weak recovery.
But in each of those three years, according to new census data crunched by the Brookings Institution, on average, 870 more people age 25 to 34 came to the St. Louis area than left it. That is the opposite of what happened the previous three years and runs counter to the general trend of recent decades. After a long time spent watching young adults move away, and the St. Louis region slowly get grayer, a lot of people say this seems like progress pay day loans.
Wooing young people has been a big focus in recent years for the groups that try to grow St. Louis’ economy. Ranging from efforts by the Regional Chamber and Growth Association to St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, “talent” initiatives and young adult councils have been launched in a bid to stem what some call a “brain drain” and spur fresh thinking in a place that is sometimes seen as stodgy and closed. Grass-roots groups have sprung up with the same ideas.
For an aging region, young adults are a sort of economic vitamin boost. People in their late 20s and early 30s are building careers and choosing where to settle down. Capturing them, and their talent, can mean a stronger workforce, which helps grow and attract companies
Guyana has signed a $1 billion agreement with a Canadian-based company for what the government says is the largest private mining investment for the South America country.
Toronto-based Guyana Goldfields Inc. said the Aurora Gold Project agreement signed Friday is the first large-scale gold mining license that Guyana has issued since 1991.
The government said it is expected to create more than 1,900 temporary and permanent jobs and Guyana Goldfields CEO Patrick Sheridan said it is expected to generate $1.6 billion in government revenues at a time of record gold prices.
The company announcement said it will pay a mining royalty of 5 percent when gold sells for $1,000 an ounce and 8 percent when the price is greater. It will also pay a corporate income tax of 30 percent.
The agreement is for 20 years, with provisions for extension.
The company said construction should start early next year and the mine and mill should be operating by early 2014.
Guyana’s government on Friday also announced a $138 million contract with the Beijing-based China Harbor Engineering Co faxless payday loans. to build a new airport terminal and add more than 3,200 feet (1,000 meters) to the main runway at the country’s principal airport, Cheddi Jagan International.
The current 7,400-foot (2,255-meter) runway cannot accommodate fully loaded jumbo jets. A Caribbean Airlines Boeing 737 aircraft that landed late on the runway on July 20 crashed through a fence, breaking in two. No one died.
The two deals come just ahead of Nov. 28 parliamentary elections, and the main opposition coalition complained the airport deal should have been debated by the legislature.
Rupert Roopnarine, the prime ministerial candidate of the Partnership For National Unity, criticized the government for making the deal after Parliament was dissolved for the general election.
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Two children and their parents were killed by machine-gun fire Saturday while trying to flee Moammar Gadhafi’s hometown along with hundreds of other residents, as forces loyal to the ousted regime engaged in heavy clashes with revolutionary fighters surrounding the city.
Their bodies were brought to a makeshift hospital outside Sirte, said a doctor there, Nuri Naari. They were hit by machine-gun fire as they drove toward the positions of revolutionary forces on the edges of the city, he said. It was unclear who killed them.
Sirte is one of the last cities to remain in loyalist hands. After months of stalemate in Libya’s civil war, anti-Gadhafi forces swept into the capital in August and their leaders set up a transitional government. But the continued fighting in holdout cities and the failure to find and capture Gadhafi has kept Libya’s new leaders from being able to declare victory.
Revolutionary forces had given families inside Sirte two days to leave the city starting Friday, said Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, head of the National Transitional Council that now runs the country. They tried to keep a safe corridor open for civilians fleeing the coastal city.
“This period will give a chance for families to leave the areas of fighting,” he said at a press conference Saturday.
Hundreds of cars carrying Sirte residents formed long lines at revolutionary forces’ checkpoints leading out of the city, calmly waiting to be checked by the fighters as explosions echoed in the distance.
After weeks of fighting Gadhafi’s loyalists inside Sirte, the fighters now hold positions about three miles (five kilometers) from the city center, said commander Mustafa al-Rubaie.
Last week, the Libyan Defense Ministry announced that Sirte’s port, airport and military base were all under their control.
Al-Rubaie told The Associated Press that fighters from the east seized control of Sirte’s first residential district and a hotel where Gadhafi’s snipers were based.
“There is heavy fighting going on in the streets of Sirte right now,” he said. “The enemy is besieged from the south, east and west but it’s still in possession of highly sophisticated weapons and a large amount of ammunition.”
Al-Rubaie said Gadhafi forces were also in control of strategic positions inside the city, including high-rise buildings where snipers are positioned, making the revolutionary forces’ advance slow and hard.
“The plan is that the eastern and western forces will meet in the middle of Sirte,” al-Rubaie said. “When we reach this point, we will celebrate the liberation of Sirte.”
Fighters on the western approaches to the city fired rockets and tank fire at loyalists’ positions, while NATO aircraft were heard circling overhead.
Gadhafi’s spokesman Moussa Ibrahim, meanwhile, denied reports that he had been captured, telling the Syrian-based TV station Al-Rai that he was traveling with 23 fighters in Sirte. There was no way to verify the identity of the man speaking in the audio recording, but it sounded like his voice and the TV station has become the mouthpiece for Gadhafi’s resistance.
Many of those fleeing Sirte said conditions in the city continue to deteriorate, with food in short supply and no water or electricity.
“We couldn’t leave our homes because of the shelling; we had to leave the city,” said Ahmed Hussein as his wife, mother-in-law and two children watched the fighters search their car.
Cars, buses and trucks loaded with families and heaped with household goods lined up at the first checkpoint about half a mile (kilometer) from the front lines. Volunteers gave the families food and water while fighters checked documents and cars.
A small contingent from the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders attempted to enter Sirte on Saturday to deliver medical supplies but turned back because of heavy shelling and no guarantees that the Gadhafi loyalist would hold their fire.
In between the bouts of shooting, Libyan fighters prayed.
Germany kept alive hopes that the 17-nation euro currency can survive the sprawling debt crisis when lawmakers in Europe’s largest economy on Thursday voted overwhelmingly in favor of expanding the powers of the eurozone’s bailout fund.
The vote strengthened Angela Merkel’s center-right coalition, which had struggled to win support from a bloc of rebellious members, and could bolster her ability to negotiate new European crisis measures.
While many investors and experts believe new steps will be required in Europe, such as letting Greece write off more of its debt pile, Germany’s approval of the fund’s new powers and scope was necessary to avoid a new bout of massive market turmoil.
“The support of the Bundestag is an important step for stabilizing the eurozone,” Michael Kemmer, head of Germany’s Bank Federation, told the news agency dapd. “With that, they have set a course that leads out of the debt crisis.”
The euro440 billion ($600 billion) fund will be able to buy government bonds and lend money to banks and governments before they are in a full-blown crisis, making Europe’s response to market jitters more rapid and pre-emptive.
Germany, which pays the lion’s share of European bailouts, became the 13th member of the eurozone to support the expansion of the rescue fund, the so-called European Financial Stability Facility, or EFSF. Cyprus also passed the proposed expansion on Thursday.
Austria’s parliament is widely expected to pass the measure on Friday, the same day Germany’s upper house of parliament is set to finalize Thursday’s vote, while the Netherlands is expected to approve it in the first week of October.
The biggest remaining hurdle is the final country to vote _ Slovakia _ where the government will not have enough support to pass it if the leader of the junior coalition Freedom and Solidarity party follows through with threats to vote against the fund’s expansion. Its parliament is to vote later in October.
In Berlin, 523 lawmakers in parliament, the Bundestag, voted in favor of expanding German participation to guarantee loans of up to euro211 billion, compared with euro123 billion so far. Eighty-five voted against it and three abstained.
“It was a strong statement of Angela Merkel’s position. She has the backing and the support of the coalition and she is able to negotiate on the European level,” Peter Altmeier, the parliamentary whip for Merkel’s Christian Democrats, said after the tally was announced.
Markets appeared calmer even before Thursday’s votes, following weeks of turbulence triggered by uncertainty over Germany’s position on the fund. The euro also traded slightly higher.
“The overwhelming majority in the Bundestag is a good sign and will hopefully mark a step change in German commitment to bringing the spiraling crisis under control,” said Sony Kapoor of the Re-Define economic policy think tank.
The lingering problem, however, is that investors are resigned to the fact that Greece will have to default _ that is, impose tougher losses on its bondholders.
Greece was saved from default by an initial euro110 billion ($150 billion) bailout in May last year before the EFSF was established to help any other countries in trouble. A planned second rescue package for Greece this year includes a voluntary participation by private bondholders, who agreed to write off about 20 percent on their Greek debt holdings.
Many experts say those writedowns should be closer to 50 percent. The debate among European leaders now is whether to allow such a move under controlled conditions, providing help to banks that may take heavy losses on Greek bonds they hold.
Germany and the Netherlands are open to the option, with Merkel suggesting this week that Greece’s second bailout deal might have to be renegotiated. France and the European Central Bank, however, oppose the idea.
Greece’s international debt inspectors returned to Athens on Thursday to complete a review. Merkel has said that any new decisions would depend upon the results of the inspectors’ report, which is not due for days.
Forging consensus over new measures _ particularly something as delicate as imposing more severe losses on Greece’s creditors _ will likely be very difficult, however.
Indeed, the parliamentary debate on the EFSF in Berlin on Thursday was a feisty three-hour long affair, reflecting how high tensions in Merkel’s coalition were running over the idea of providing more backing to the eurozone’s weakest members.
Frank Schaeffler, a dissenter from the junior coalition partner, argued that bailout measures have worsened Greece’s economic situation.
“Despite all arguments, the first bailout did not make the situation for Greece better, but worse,” said Schaeffler, a Free Democrat. “Expanding the fund will make the situation even worse.”
Schaeffler and others had long expressed their concerns, and opposition leaders had said going in to the vote that if Merkel’s coalition had to rely on their votes, it would be a sign that her strife-prone and increasingly unpopular government is finished.
Yet after a night of intense lobbying, Merkel’s camp was able to secure a majority of 315 _ enough to have passed the measure even without support from the opposition parties.
“This shows the clear determination of the coalition on this issue,” Rainer Bruederle, the Free Democrats’ parliamentary leader. “We have made an important decision for Europe.”
Any future changes to the current fund will also require parliamentary approval and maintaining that determination will be crucial to making swift, effective decisions to combat the crisis.
In addition, the Bundestag will face another major vote early next year on the fund’s permanent replacement, the European Stability Mechanism, which is due to take effect in 2013. Schaeffler has already vowed to rally his party to reject the ESM.
Party leaders insist they are not worried by Schaeffler’s plans, but many analysts have noted Merkel will have to hold her majority together, or Thursday may have only been the first in a series of nail-biting parliamentary showdowns over shoring up the euro.
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Geir Moulson and Tomislav Skaro in Berlin, and Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus, contributed to this report.
A legal fight over a company’s claim that its designs for numerous SeaWorld attractions were stolen by the theme park operator and its former owner, Anheuser-Busch, has now landed in a St. Louis courtroom.
Revere Entertainment Studios, an Oviedo, Fla.-based design firm, has filed a federal lawsuit alleging SeaWorld used several concepts Revere developed for attractions at SeaWorld theme parks in Orlando, San Diego and San Antonio but did not pay for the development or use. Revere originally filed the suit in federal court in Florida in May, but the case was transferred to federal court in St. Louis on Sept. 16.
Revere names SeaWorld and A-B in the lawsuit in addition to several current and former SeaWorld and A-B executives.
The brewery’s parent company, Belgium-based Anheuser-Busch InBev, owned SeaWorld until late 2009, when it sold its theme park division, Busch Entertainment, to private equity firm Blackstone Group for more than $2.3 billion. Busch Entertainment was headquartered in Clayton until it moved to Orlando in 2008.
Revere claims in the lawsuit that it created an Australian Extremes concept for rides and attractions and pitched the idea to several Busch Entertainment and SeaWorld executives beginning in 2005. Revere also claims it created multiple concepts for rides and attractions, such as a merry-go-round with dolphins and seahorses, that SeaWorld ultimately added to its parks low rates payday advance.
Revere claims SeaWorld and the other defendants named in the suit breached an implied contract by using Revere’s ideas but not paying for the work. Revere claims that many of the ideas it presented to SeaWorld, were slightly changed, for example, Revere alleges it presented an idea for a Dynamite Pass roller coaster and SeaWorld ultimately added a similar attraction called the Dynamite Drop.
Tucker Byrd, an attorney representing Revere, said the damages he’s seeking for his client exceed $100 million. Revere ’spent a couple of years putting it together and thousands of hours creating this thing,” Byrd said. “Then the defendants misappropriated the property of my clients.”
In a motion filed to dismiss the case, SeaWorld and the other defendants argued that Revere signed a non-confidentiality agreement and that Busch Entertainment “made no commitment to keep products, ideas or materials secret or in confidence.”
In an emailed statement, Fred Jacobs, a spokesman for SeaWorld, called the allegations “baseless and meritless.”
Hundreds of Longshore workers overpowered security guards in an aggressive raid on a Washington state grain terminal, officials said Thursday, and the action drew quick rebuke from a federal judge that has tried to curb the union’s escalating tactics in an ongoing labor dispute.
Workers have been battling for the right to work at the new terminal in Longview. But U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton issued a preliminary injunction to restrict union activity, saying there was no defense for the aggressive tactics used in recent days.
Protesters twice blocked the pathway of a train carrying grain to the terminal at the Port of Longview on Wednesday, and early Thursday morning hundreds of them stormed the facility, overwhelmed guards, dumped grain and broke windows, police said.
The dispute halted work at four other Washington ports, including Seattle, on Thursday as hundreds of longshoremen refused to show up or walked off the job.
Leighton said he felt like a paper tiger because the International Longshore and Warehouse Union clearly ignored a temporary restraining order he issued last week with similar limits. He scheduled a hearing for next Thursday to determine whether the union should be held in civil contempt.
“The regard for the law is absent here,” the judge said. “Somebody is going to be hurt seriously.”
Six guards were trapped for a couple of hours after at least 500 Longshoremen broke down gates about 4:30 a.m. and smashed windows in the guard shack, Longview Police Chief Jim Duscha said. He initially referred to the guards as “hostages,” but later retracted that after the guards clarified no one had threatened them.
“The guards absolutely could not get out,” Duscha said. “They feared for their lives because of the size of the crowd and the hostility of the crowd.”
No one was hurt, and nobody has been arrested _ although Duscha said that could change if police are able to use surveillance video or other means to identify the protesters.
Most of the protesters returned to their union hall after cutting train brake lines and spilling grain from a car at the EGT terminal, Duscha said. They also pushed a private security vehicle into a ditch.
The union believes it has the right to work at the facility, but the company has hired a contractor that’s staffing a workforce of laborers from another union, the Portland-based Operating Engineers Local 701 cheap pay day loans. Representatives of the engineers union did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
In Seattle, Tacoma, Everett and Anacortes, hundreds of Longshore workers failed to show up or walked off the job Thursday in apparent solidarity with the Longview activists, halting work at those ports. Union leaders said they had not called for any such actions.
“It appears the members have taken action on their own,” said ILWU spokesman Craig Merrilees from union headquarters in San Francisco.
He said some workers might have been motivated by a photograph of ILWU President Bob McElrath in police custody in Longview on Wednesday.
McElrath was not arrested, but an Associated Press photo showed him being grabbed by several police officers before union activists intervened and grabbed him back.
Police arrested 19 protesters as they blocked railroad tracks on Wednesday night, allowing the train to finally arrive at the terminal.
The protesters in Longview have portrayed themselves as being on the front line in the struggle for jobs and benefits among American workers in an economic downturn. But while union strife has flared up around the country _ most notably in Wisconsin _ the aggressive tactics seen in Longview have been a rarity in recent labor disputes.
Labor activists insist that after receiving tax breaks and promising to create well-paying jobs at the new $200 million terminal, EGT initially tried to staff the terminal with nonunion workers. Following a series of protests by the Longshore workers this year, the company announced it would hire a contractor staffed by workers from a different union.
“Today, the ILWU took its criminal activity against EGT to an appalling level, including engaging in assault and significant property destruction,” the company’s chief executive, Larry Clarke, said in a written statement. “This type of violent attack at the export terminal has been condemned by a federal court, and we fully support prosecution of this criminal behavior to the fullest extent under the law.”
Pyongyang’s vow Monday to scrap all South Korean property at a joint mountain resort could mark the end of what was once a rare haven for curious southern tourists within the borders of North Korea.
For a decade, visitors from the South came in droves to Diamond Mountain, essentially a modern South Korean resort an hour’s drive into the North, where they could play golf, relax in hot springs and soak up the folklore of the beautiful nearby mountain.
However, one of the few bright spots of cooperation between the divided countries has been on hold since a North Korean soldier shot and killed a South Korean woman visiting the resort three years ago.
North Korea is now threatening to end it completely by getting rid of South Korean assets and opening up the resort to international investors. On Monday, Pyongyang ordered all South Korean workers at the resort to leave within 72 hours and banned any South Korean property from being removed.
The North is angered by Seoul’s refusal to resume the lucrative tours until Pyongyang formally apologizes for the shooting death and allows a joint investigation.
Diplomats from the United States and the two Koreas are separately pursuing tentative talks meant to jump-start North Korean nuclear disarmament talks, but the meltdown at Diamond Mountain of what was once a promising symbol of potential inter-Korean cooperation shows how deep animosity runs on the Korean peninsula.
The South immediately expressed regret Monday about the North’s comments on Diamond Mountain and voiced its intention to seek international mediation.
Nestled near a craggy mountain range that stretches down to the sea, the resort drew hundreds of millions of dollars of South Korean investment until the shooting death brought cross-border tours to a halt in July 2008.
Diamond Mountain tours kicked off in 1998 under the initiative of a South Korean tycoon with roots in the North. Nearly 2 million South Koreans flocked to the resort, eager to see its beauty and be part of a spirit of reconciliation that blossomed during two liberal South Korean governments’ engagement with the North.
Often hailed as the peninsula’s most beautiful peak, Diamond Mountain has been a subject of praise by both ancient and modern Korean musicians, painters and historians. The North’s media often tout its beauty, describing the way white clouds drift over its saw-toothed peaks.
The land around Diamond Mountain, however, has been seen tension since the 1950-53 Korean War. Thousands of troops died fighting to conquer hills lying south of the mountain during the war. Two years before the tours began, a group of armed North Korean infiltrators slipped south of the border aboard a submarine, rattling South Koreans until most of the agents were killed.
The start of the tours led to many of the troops guarding the border to fall back and allowed South Korean businesses to capitalize on a tourism asset they had long eyed.
The languishing resort appeared in fair condition last year when family members separated by the truce that ended the Korean War were briefly reunited under a Red Cross program. A handful of workers were stationed there by South Korea’s Hyundai Asan company, the resort’s operator. Slogans were carved into hillside rocks, with propaganda billboards hailing North Korean leader Kim Jong Il as “the sun of the 21st century.”
Ties between the Koreas frayed badly last year. The North bombarded a South Korean island last November, killing four people. It also denies responsibility for the sinking of a South Korean warship that killed 46 sailors in March last year.
North Korea in June told the South to draw up plans to salvage its assets. Hyundai Asan estimates $370 million in sales have been lost since the tours were suspended. North Korea had annually won tens of millions of dollars from the tours, analysts believe.
Hope that tours could be revived followed a meeting of nuclear envoys from North and South Korea held in Indonesia last month. A later visit by a high-level North Korean diplomat to New York was another sign that a thaw could be looming in the Korean peninsula’s icy ties.
But last month the two countries failed to agree on an additional round of talks on the fate of the resort.
“The Diamond Mount program is holding on to its last breath,” Kang Sung-yoon, a North Korea professor at Seoul’s Dongguk University, said.
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