The financial news that actually matters
Just five months ago, a homebuyer could lock in a 30-year fixed mortgage at 5.75%. That window has closed. The average rate climbed to 6.46% in late May 2026, according to Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey, the highest reading in roughly seven months and a painful reversal for anyone who assumed borrowing costs would…
In January, a buyer putting 20% down on a $400,000 home could lock in a 30-year fixed mortgage near 5.75%, making the monthly principal-and-interest payment about $2,334. Five months later, that same loan costs roughly $2,520 a month. The 30-year fixed rate has climbed to 6.46%, according to Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey, and…
Better Home & Finance and Coinbase launched what they call the first conforming mortgage that lets borrowers pledge cryptocurrency as a down payment instead of converting it to cash. The product is designed so that finished loans can be sold to Fannie Mae on the secondary market, just like any other conventional home loan. Only…
For three straight weeks, mortgage rates had been drifting lower, giving spring homebuyers a reason to feel cautiously optimistic. That streak ended abruptly. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate climbed to 6.30% for the week ending April 30, 2026, up from 6.23% the prior week, according to Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey. The 15-year…
When State Farm locked in a 17% rate hike on California homeowners policies this spring, it confirmed what many policyholders already suspected: the January 2025 wildfires that burned through Pacific Palisades, Altadena, and surrounding communities did not just destroy neighborhoods. They broke the economics of insuring a home in the nation’s most populous state. Insurify,…
Last winter, when electricity bills in Arlington, Massachusetts, spiked for the third year running, a cluster of neighbors on the same block decided they were done waiting for rates to come back down. They pooled their interest, vetted a single solar installer together, and negotiated a bulk discount that none of them could have landed…
Most retirees drive less than they did a decade ago. Fewer commute miles, fewer rush-hour merges, fewer claims. Yet the insurance bill that lands in the mailbox often looks the same as it did before retirement, or worse. The reason is simple: insurers rarely volunteer discounts. If you don’t ask, you don’t get them. The…
In 2013, the Consumer Federation of America published rate comparisons showing that a driver with a clean record and a credit score near 580 could be quoted $1,000 or more per year above a neighbor with the same driving history and a score near 780, according to the organization’s analysis of online quotes from major…
When floodwater swallowed the ground floor of a terraced house in Lincolnshire during Storm Bert in late 2024, the homeowner assumed the worst was behind her once the pumps arrived. Months later, with plaster still drying and a rebuilding bill north of £40,000, she learned her insurer was raising her annual premium by nearly a…
The call from the hospital comes on a Tuesday. By Thursday, someone in the family is standing in the kitchen of a house that no longer has an owner, wondering who pays the mortgage this month. The deed will transfer through probate eventually, but three federal systems covering taxes, insurance and mortgage servicing keep running…