Longterm Mortgages Provides Homeowners lower Payments

Bankrate -- With a quarter of all home loans in California already stretching 40 years, a big lender makes the leap to a mortgage that's still kicking on your golden anniversary.

The Methuselah of mortgages has arrived: the 50-year home loan. Think of it as a mortgage that has been supersized. Like that other supersizer, McDonald's, the massive mortgage was born in Southern California's San Bernardino County. Statewide Bancorp of Rancho Cucamonga began offering the loan in late March, to California residents. Advertisements have yielded a lot of phone calls and "quite a few applications," says Alex Diaz Jr., vice president of Statewide. Half of first-time home buyers are 32 or older, according to the National Association of Realtors. If those buyers get 50-year mortgages and never refinance or make extra payments, they won't pay off their loans until they're well into their 80s. Would they be crazy to get loans that amortize or pay off the balance over 50 years instead of the standard 30 years? Not at all, Diaz says. (Read More).

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The House has voted to impose tough new rules for credit card companies unless lenders agree to freeze interest rates and fees.

The bill, approved 331-92, would accelerate the February enactment date of legislation already passed by Congress that limits when and how banks can charge credit card customers. The bill would become effective when President Barack Obama signs it, but prospects of Senate passage are dim.

Last month, Rep. Barney Frank, who is working on Wall Street reforms, essentially warned banks to stop exploiting the time period before the new credit card rules' enactment to jack up rates on customers.

But the Massachusetts Democrat, who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, said at a that lenders have abused the grace period by using the time to hike rates ahead of the new rules.

It is very clear that this is the kind of protection that shouldn't wait and we should move forward," Frank said about the new credit card rules. In May, the Senate passed a major reform of the credit card industry, clamping down on arbitrary fee and interest rate increases. (read more)