Foreclosure | featured news

The Obama administration's loan modification program is finally underway.

U.S. foreclosure activity leaped 46 percent in March from a year earlier, hitting a record high as programs stunting the torrid pace of failing mortgages expired, RealtyTrac reported on Thursday.

What was a bad situation is likely to turn worse, as more properties are forced into bankruptcy or foreclosure.

Addie Polk, who became the national face of the foreclosure crisis last fall when she shot herself during an eviction, was a quiet woman who never asked for help.

In early 2008, Cheryl Ann Montero, a California mortgage broker, held a series of free seminars in the clubhouse of the Lone Tree Golf Course in Contra Costa County, a suburban area near San Francisco. The attendees, homeowners facing foreclosure, were desperate for a rescue from their woes. Using a PowerPoint presentation, Montero delivered one.

When Lisa Brown moved into her rental house on Long Island last summer with her three daughters, she says, it felt like a new beginning.

President Barack Obama announced fresh aid to struggling homeowners in California Thursday, playing a bit of divide-and-conquer by pitting his Republican critics in Washington against GOP governors and mayors eager for the federal money.

The House has passed legislation to give debt-strapped homeowners a chance to win lower mortgage payments through bankruptcy courts.

About one in every eight U.S. households, a record share, ended 2008 behind on their mortgage payments or in the foreclosure process as job losses intensified a housing crisis spawned by lax lending practices, the Mortgage Bankers Association said on Thursday

The Obama administration today released details of $75 billion home loan modification and refinancing programs. Borrowers can start contacting loan servicers.