Mortgage Defaults Top 1M, Keep Rising

The number of troubled home loans continued to rise in the third quarter, despite the Obama camp's efforts to stem the tide by mortgage modification. For the first quarter ever, the number of homes in foreclosure with mortgages serviced by US banks topped the 1 million mark, the Los Angeles Times reports, as previously solid buyers fell behind. And more than half the homeowners whose payments were lowered defaulted again.

The effect of the White House's modification efforts so far has been small, with only 31,382 of 700,000 trial modifications offered in place as of November 30. But there is some good news: Homeowners with more recent modifications were doing better at keeping up, suggesting that people may finally be getting better terms on their renegotiated loans.
(More homes stories.)