Car seat company settles for $10M

Graco has agreed to pay $10 million to settle claims that it failed to promptly recall about 4 million child seats with a defective buckle that could make it difficult to free a child in an emergency, federal regulators said Friday.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Graco would pay a $3 million fine and spend $7 million developing safety programs.

Graco had said the only problem with the buckle was that children were spilling food or drinks on them. But some parents told federal regulators they had to cut straps to free a child, and regulators dismissed the contamination excuse, saying such a problem was foreseeable. In January 2014, the agency demanded a recall. Graco refused, but about a month later, it relented.

Cities see rise in negative equity

Despite an overall housing recovery, it’s suddenly becoming more common in several of the nation’s largest cities for homeowners to owe more than their homes are worth.

The national negative equity rate, which had declined for 2½ years, stalled in the fourth quarter of 2014 at 16.9 percent, according to a new report from Zillow.

Negative equity refers to when a homeowner owes more a mortgage than the value of the home if sold on the market.

In the fourth quarter, the rate worsened in 21 of the nation’s top 50 housing markets.

Zillow estimated that more than a quarter of homeowners are underwater in the metropolitan areas of Virginia Beach, Virgina; Jacksonville, Florida; Las Vegas, Atlanta, Chicago and Memphis, Tennessee.

Zillow reported that the underwater rate for top value homes was only about 9 percent, compared with almost 16 percent for middle-value homes, and more than 27 percent for the bottom-tier home values.

— From wire reports