Home mortgage rates edge up slightly

WASHINGTON – The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage rose after standing pat for three straight weeks at record lows. But the rate stayed below 4 percent for the 12th straight week, keeping home-buying and refinancing attractive for those who can qualify.

Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday the rate on the 30-year loan rose to 3.95 percent. That’s up from last week’s rate of 3.87 percent, the lowest since long-term mortgages began in the 1950s.

The average on the 15-year fixed mortgage rose to 3.19 percent from 3.16 percent. It hit a record low of 3.14 percent three weeks ago.

Accounting adjustment boosts AIG profits

NEW YORK – American International Group, the insurance company that was bailed out by the government in 2008, reported a $19.8 billion profit in the fourth quarter of last year, nearly all of it due to a tax-related accounting gain.

In the same period a year earlier, the company earned $11.2 billion. Excluding the accounting adjustment, AIG had operating earnings of $1.6 billion, compared to an operating loss of $2.2 billion a year ago.

The company also earned $17.8 billion for 2011, its second straight year of profits. And that, CEO Robert Benmosche said in a statement, was something that AIG’s skeptics would have thought “inconceivable” a couple of years ago. The insurance giant teetered near collapse in 2008 before being taken over by the federal government. The government still owns about 76 percent of AIG.