Mortgage delinquencies drag on economic recovery

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The mortgage crisis is dragging on the economic recovery as more homeowners fall behind on their payments.
Analysts expect improvement soon, but the number of homeowners in default or at risk of foreclosure will have a lingering effect on the broader economy.
More than 10 percent of homeowners with a mortgage had missed at least one payment in the January-March period, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Wednesday. That's a record high and up from 9.1 percent a year ago.
A big jump in the number of borrowers who have missed three months of mortgage payments drove the increase.

Around 4.3 million homeowners, or about 8 percent of all Americans with a mortgage, are at risk of losing their homes, the trade group's top economist estimates. They have either missed at least three months of payments or are in foreclosure.
Should loan modification programs fail to help, their homes will go up for sale either as a foreclosure or short sale -- when the bank agrees to sell the property for less than the original mortgage amount.
Many analysts have been forecasting home prices will dip again as more of these homes go up for sale at deeply discounted prices.
"It's certainly a weight on the economy," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, who predicts home prices will fall about 5 percent and hit the bottom next spring. "Nothing works all that well in the economy when house prices are falling."

The Obama administration's $75 billion foreclosure prevention program has barely dented the problem.
About 25 percent of the 1.2 million homeowners who started the program over the past year had received permanent loan modifications as of last month. About 23 percent of those enrolled dropped out during a trial phase that lasts at least three months. Many more are in limbo.
The administration's program hasn't been able to help Dan Felipe, 61, of Winton, Calif.
He fell into financial trouble as the economy went south. So he took out $70,000 in loans to keep his business afloat.
In danger of losing his home, he tried to get a mortgage modification from Bank of America. The bank signed him up for the government foreclosure plan last August, but hasn't lowered his mortgage payment permanently.
"I was never in this kind of mess," Felipe said. "I've taken care of my family for the last 20 years."
A Bank of America spokeswoman said Felipe's mortgage appears to not qualify for the Obama program. She said the bank will re-examine his case and consider him for other alternatives.
Economic woes, such as unemployment or reduced income, are the main catalysts for foreclosures this year. Initially, lax lending standards were the culprit. But homeowners with good credit who took out conventional, fixed-rate loans are now the fastest growing group of foreclosures.
Those borrowers made up nearly 37 percent of new foreclosures in the first quarter of the year, up from 29 percent a year earlier.