ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 13, 1996 TAG: 9612130072
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
Mortgage rates up, average 7.57
WASHINGTON - Thirty-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 7.57 percent this week when they posted the first increase in nearly two months, according to a national survey released Thursday by the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp.
The average was up from 7.44 percent last week and the highest since Nov. 14, when rates averaged 7.59 percent. Until Thursday, rates had fallen each week since reaching 7.88 percent Oct. 17.
On one-year adjustable-rate mortgages, lenders were asking an average initial rate of 5.52 percent, up from 5.47 percent last week.
Fifteen-year mortgages, a popular option for those refinancing mortgages, averaged 7.06 percent this week, up from 6.96 percent a week earlier.
The rates do not include add-on fees known as points.
- Associated Press
Nissan cuts dealer for racial slurs
NEWPORT NEWS - Nissan Motor Corp. is pulling its franchise from a car dealer who was secretly videotaped using racial slurs.
Nissan sent a letter by certified mail Thursday notifying Bob Crumpler of its decision, company spokesman Kurt Von Zumwalt said. Crumpler will have 90 days to challenge the action.
In a videotape made three months ago, Crumpler referred to a black worker as a ``nigger'' while he berated the worker's white supervisor, Von Zumwalt said in a telephone interview from Nissan North America headquarters in Gardena, Calif.
The company had tried to counsel Crumpler several times in the past couple of years for misbehavior, Von Zumwalt said. Another spokesman, Ed Lewis, said Crumpler ``has a history of behavior there that's below common decency'' and called the slurs the last straw.
Crumpler has Nissan dealerships in Newport News and in Portsmouth. Messages seeking comment were left for him Thursday at the Newport News site. He was said to be meeting with his lawyer, Robert Beale.
Messages seeking comment also were left for Beale.
Beale said Saturday that Crumpler was sorry about the slurs ``and did not intend to make any racial, derogatory remark, although it came out that way.''
The tape was disclosed last weekend by the Daily Press and by WAVY-TV in Norfolk. It was made in the office of a mobile home park Crumpler owns, by a man who worked there. The newspaper did not identify the man, but quoted him as saying he quit in September because he was tired of verbal abuse.
Von Zumwalt said it is rare for the company to revoke franchise agreements among its 1,100 dealers in the United States for reasons other than fraud.
In its letter to Crumpler, Nissan cited a clause in its agreement barring dealers from conduct that might reflect adversely on the reputation of Nissan, its products or the dealership.
- Associated Press
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