MORTGAGE RATES – The average rate on 30-year mortgages remained below 6 percent this week, but rose to its highest level in five weeks: 5.72 percent.
HOME SALES – Roughly half of the nation’s metropolitan areas continued to show rising home prices in the fourth quarter of 2007, according to the latest quarterly survey by National Association of Realtors.
PROPERTY INSURANCE – When the Florida Legislature enacted rules to lower property insurance rates last year, was Allstate trying to figure out how to comply with them or how to ignore them? A Florida Senate committee wants to know, and yesterday requested copies of all Allstate internal correspondence related to the insurance bill.
PROPERTY TAXES – Before voters passed Amendment 1 in January, Govenor Charlie Crist, top lawmakers and other backers promised it would be just the first step. Now Crist says he’s unsure what the next step should be, but other tax-cutting advocates have laid out a wide range of options.