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.