30-year mortgage rate slips to 3.90%

WASHINGTON >> Long-term U.S. mortgage rates dropped slightly this week.

Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac says the benchmark 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage averaged 3.90 percent, down from 3.91 percent last week. The rate stood at 3.56 percent a year ago and averaged a record low 3.65 percent in 2016.

The 15-year, fixed-rate home loan, popular with homeowners seeking to refinance their mortgages, also moved lower — to 3.17 percent from 3.18 percent. A year ago the 15-year rate was 2.83 percent.

Mortgage rates have remained low even though the Federal Reserve has been raising short-term rates: The Fed last week ratcheted rates higher for the third time in six months.

$120M fine proposed for travel-deal robocalls

NEW YORK >> The Federal Communications Commission is proposing a $120 million fine for a scheme that appeared to trick consumers into buying vacation packages that were not what they had expected.

The agency said Thursday that Miami resident Adrian Abramovich, through his companies, made calls that were faked to appear as though they were from the same area code as the people who were dialed. That local touch could persuade more people to pick up the phone.

People who did answer the phone heard a recording saying they could get a vacation package from well-known travel companies like Marriott, Expedia, Hilton and TripAdvisor. Instead, they got transferred to a call center where salespeople pushed low-quality travel deals, often related to timeshares, that were unaffiliated with the brands in the prerecorded message at the start of the call.

The agency said Abramovich’s companies made nearly 97 million robocalls from October to December and were spewing out “mass-robocalling” operations in both 2015 and 2016.

FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said that the $120 million penalty would be the largest in the agency’s history.

U.S. job benefit applications remain low

Slightly more people sought U.S. unemployment benefits last week, but the number of applications remained at a historically low level that suggests the job market is healthy.

The Labor Department says weekly applications rose 3,000 to a seasonally adjusted 241,000. The less volatile four-week average ticked up 1,500 to 244,750.

The number of people receiving unemployment benefit checks rose by 8,000, to 1.94 million. That figure has fallen by more than 9 percent in the past year.

Applications are a proxy for layoffs, and they have come in below 300,000, a historically low level, for 120 weeks in a row. That’s the longest such stretch since 1970.

ON THE MOVE

Honolulu Federal Credit Union has hired Casey Onaga as senior loan officer. He was previously a financial services officer with another local credit union.