Business Highlights

RALEIGH, N.C. — One move by rival Oracle Corp. has turned Red Hat Inc. from a celebrated leader in open-source software to a fragile underdog.

Shares of Red Hat tumbled 24 percent Thursday on the news that Oracle will move aggressively onto Red Hat’s turf by selling maintenance services for Red Hat products.

Oracle’s brawn threatens an undersized Red Hat, which has benefited from a relative shortage of competition in the Linux sector — until now.

"Red Hat needs a new business model fast,” said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group tech consulting firm. "Oracle’s organization is vastly superior. They’ll be providing a better product at a better price. Nobody can say right now whether Red Hat will even be able to survive.”

Rates on 30-year mortgages rise to highest level in 5 weeks

WASHINGTON — Rates on 30-year mortgages rose this week to the highest level in five weeks.

The mortgage company Freddie Mac reported Thursday that 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages increased to 6.40 percent last week. That was up from 6.36 percent last week and was the highest since they also hit 6.40 percent the week of Sept. 21.

All categories of mortgages showed slight increases for the week, a fact that some analysts attributed to inflation concerns expressed by officials at the Federal Reserve.

The Fed left interest rates unchanged for a third straight meeting on Wednesday after having raised rates 17 consecutive times over two years. Analysts said any rate cuts are still months away because the Fed is worried inflation is too high.

Frank Nothaft, chief economist at Freddie Mac, noted that the slowdown in housing caused the median price of both new and existing homes to post rare declines in September.

"Some areas of the country may experience a few bumps up and down as the housing industry corrects itself in the coming months,” he said.

Craigslist takes on fraudulent apartment brokers in NYC

NEW YORK — A popular swap and sell Web site where city renters also hunt for apartments is teaming up with City Hall to crack down on sneaky brokers.

Craigslist.org founder Craig Newmark said Thursday he is working with the City Council to go after apartment brokers who post deceptive ads on his New York City site.

Craigslist, which was founded in San Francisco, has sites in every state and more than 50 countries and gets more than 5 billion page views per month. Newmark said no other city comes close to matching New York’s scheming brokers who take advantage of renters.

The most common broker offense in the city’s chaotic real estate market: They post apartment listings concealing the fact that the deal comes with a pricey commission, which is typically 15 percent of a year’s rent — often thousands of dollars. Newmark said sometimes renters don’t find out until they’re about to sign the lease, when it’s difficult to back out.

"In New York, real estate really is a blood sport,” he said. "It’s different than anywhere else.”