AP - Rates on 30-year mortgages dropped sharply this week, falling to the lowest level in five weeks.

Reuters - U.S. officials said on Thursday they were weighing the possibility of government guarantees for troubled mortgage loans to try to induce lenders to modify terms and slow a rising tide of home foreclosures.

Reuters - A Bear Stearns mortgage portfolio backed by the U.S. government racked up $2.7 billion of losses in the third quarter, amounting to a 9 percent decline on about $30 billion of assets, the Federal Reserve said Thursday.

Reuters - Mortgage finance company Freddie Mac has asked a U.S. bankruptcy judge for the ability to conduct an investigation into $1.2 billion it claims it is owed by bankrupt investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc .

Reuters - General Motors Corp is suspending matching payments to employee 401K plans as of November 1 and continues to assess its staffing needs as part of efforts to conserve cash amid a deep downturn in sales, the automaker said on Thursday.

Reuters - A top U.S. banking regulator said on Thursday the government must do more to guarantee mortgage loans to persuade lenders to modify their terms and help ward off a rising wave of foreclosures.

AP - Executives and employees at the major credit ratings agencies were often aware of problems in the AAA grades awarded to thousands of mortgage-related securities whose downgrades helped plunge the nation into a financial meltdown.

Reuters - Demand for applications to buy U.S. homes and refinance mortgages sank to the lowest level in nearly eight years, a trade group said on Wednesday, in the heart of a financial crisis that has sapped consumer confidence.

AP - There's plenty of blame to go around for the ongoing credit crisis, and a House panel investigating the meltdown Wednesday cast much of it on credit ratings agencies like Standard & Poor's for giving good-as-gold ratings to securities backed by subprime mortgage loans.

Reuters - Top Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday called for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate "fraud and mismanagement" at troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

AFP - The financial crisis has provided a needed culling of weak US financial institutions and mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should bow out in turn, a top New York banker said Tuesday.

Reuters - National City Corp, a U.S. Midwest regional bank hard hit by the credit crisis, on Tuesday announced plans to slash 4,000 jobs and said rising reserves for soured mortgage and real estate construction loans led to its fifth straight quarterly loss.