NATION

NATION

30-year mortgages fall
to average 6.07 percent

WASHINGTON — Rates on 30-year mortgages fell last week to the lowest level in a month as investors found new reasons to worry about a possible recession. Freddie Mac, the mortgage company, reported Thursday that 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages averaged 6.07 percent this week. That was down from 6.17 percent last week and was the lowest level for 30-year mortgages since the week of Dec. 6 when they fell to a two-year low of 5.96 percent. That marked the only time that the 30-year mortgage was below 6 percent last year.

Personal bankruptcy
filings jump 40% in 2007

WASHINGTON — U.S. personal bankruptcy filings jumped 40 percent in 2007 due to rising mortgage payments, job losses and other financial pressures.

The increase followed a sharp decline from a year earlier, when a new law made it more difficult for consumers to seek bankruptcy-court protection from creditors.

More than 800,000 personal bankruptcy filings were made in 2007, compared with more than 573,000 in 2006 — the lowest level since 1998, according to data collected by the National Bankruptcy Research Center and published by the American Bankruptcy Institute, a research group in Alexandria, Va.

Associated Press