Mortgage rates saw mild improvement this week after running up for weeks, mortgage financier Freddie Mac reported today.

The popular 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 4.81 percent during the week ending December 23, down from 4.83 percent last week, and just below the 5.05 percent average seen this time last year.

The 15-year fixed fell to 4.15 percent from 4.17 percent, and is now just 30 basis points below the 4.45 percent average seen a year ago.

Meanwhile, the five-year adjustable-rate mortgage dipped to 3.75 percent from 3.77 percent and is well below the 4.40 percent average of last year.

The one-year ARM was the only loser of the bunch, rising to 3.40 percent from 3.35 percent, but remains about a point below the 4.38 percent average seen in late 2009.

“Mortgage rates were little changed this week following significant increases over the prior several weeks,” said Frank Nothaft, in a release.

“Economic reports in December have suggested the economy began regaining momentum towards the end of the year, with consumer spending, industrial production and exports all posting solid gains.

“Treasury yields backed up as this stronger growth outlook caused an improvement in risk appetites and the likelihood of deflation to recede further.”

The interest rates above are good for conforming loan amounts at 80 percent loan-to-value; pricing adjustments may increase or lower the rate you ultimately receive, and mortgage points must also be paid.

Jumbo loans continue to price a half percentage point or more higher than conforming mortgages.

The Capital One Rewards catalog for 2011 is available. Technically, it is the Holiday 2010 Capital One NoHassle Miles rewards catalog, but they never really seem to update it the next year, so for all practical purposes, it is the rewards catalog for Capital One 2011 miles redemption amounts.

After I get a chance to look through it, I’ll post some updates to the rewards chart and any other interesting news from the Capital One rewards program updates.

One of the first things you learn when righting your financial ship is that a credit score is one of the most important things about personal finance.  Three digits can separate your from tens of thousands of dollars in potential interest payments and on an even greater scale, prevent you from obtaining the line of credit you need.

In order to make sure your credit score is as high as possible, you’ll need to keep a close eye on it, preferably before you’re applying for a line of credit.  Finding your free FICO credit score isn’t as easy as you might think, as the FICO credit score is not available at most online merchants.  myFICO.com is unparalleled when it comes to FICO credit score accuracy and credit report information and signing-up for their 10-day free trial offer is a breeze.  Allow me to take you through the information you’ll have available to you after completing the sign-up process (2-3 minutes in length).

myFICO Credit Report and Score

Immediately following the completion of your personal and credit card information, you land on a page which displays your FICO credit score (from Equifax) as well as other information valuable to your future credit.  First, let’s take a look at the summary page:

You’ll notice that in addition to the FICO score on the left, you see four categories to the right that play into your credit score.  In the example above, the length of credit history is keeping this FICO score above water, as the amount of debt is relatively high and the payment history as not been good.  A score of 592 is not good enough to obtain a mortgage, however with a few more months of on-time payments, and a reduction of the debt amount, the score should improve.  An illustration of these points is provided below.

In addition to your credit score, you’ll also receive your credit report from Equifax, which will show you the last two years worth of payment history from all of your creditors, as well as any public records or collections against you.  There are a total of seven pages available, detailing different aspects of your credit report.  A summary page for this is also available and show below:

The 10-day Score Watch Free Trial is an excellent way to keep track of your FICO credit score and know exactly what areas you need improvement in.  To continue the service beyond the free-trial, the cost is $12.95 a month, however using the coupon code FICO25 will discount your purchase by 25% (essentially providing you 5 months worth of monitoring for the price of  four months).

Canceling the service should you decide not to continue is a breeze, as myFICO allows you to send a secure message within your account requesting a cancellation.  Just remember to do so within the 10-day free-trial period, as your credit card will be charged $12.95 on the 11th day.

For those with excellent credit, there really isn’t a need to monitor it day by day, however checking your credit score and report frequently to make sure that the information is 100% accurate is a crucial step in managing your finances.  The 10-day myFICO free credit score offer was launched just a few weeks ago and even if you’ve taken advantage of this offer in the past, you will be eligible to try it again (so long as it’s been over 12 months).  I’ve used this service for a long time now and the alerts I receive in my email have been extremely helpful.

To sign-up for your 10-day free trial on the myFICO Score Watch offer, visit any link within this post.

This blog post was hand-crafted for you by Michael Pruser

Michael has written 32 awesome article(s) for PT Money: Personal Finance.

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