Report: Mortgage troubles still on the rise

10.01.09
By Nicholas Storie

A new government report finds that mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures continued to increase in the second quarter, despite more efforts to help homeowners emerge from such difficulties.

According to the report from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision, delinquencies were up to 8.5 percent of all mortgages while foreclosures were up to 2.9 percent of mortgages.

Despite an ongoing rise in troubled mortgages, government efforts to help distressed homeowners, such as through the "Making Home Affordable" program, have increased 75 percent since the first quarter of 2008.

In another sign of ongoing trouble for home buyers, a Federal Reserve report this week found that about 32 percent of all applications for mortgages were turned down last year, while the overall number of home loan applications also fell significantly.

This is due to the credit crunch and recession that has shut out many borrowers, except for those with the highest credit scores, from securing mortgage loans and even smaller things like new credit cards.

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Americans are continuing to have problems with distressed mortgages.