public class RateViewModel {
  public RateObj RateObj { get; set; }
  public IEnumerable‹RateObj>
  rateList =
    from r in XDocument.Load(@"~\Content\rates.xml").Root.Elements("rate")
    select new RateObj()
    {
        Term = (string)r.Element("Term")
      , Rate = (double)r.Element("Rate")
      , APR  = (double)r.Element("APR")
    };
}