Here's the mortgage mess, Maryland-style, in a snapshot -- a chart that shows the growth in the number of homes whose owners are at least one payment behind.
It's been trending down a bit this year, good news if that continues. The 3 percent drop in the summer was the first year-over-year decrease since 2006. But I'm not hearing a lot of optimism out there about the possibility of big improvement soon, given the state of unemployment.
(These figures, in case you're wondering, are drawn from a Mortgage Bankers Association survey that covers nearly 90 percent of loans outstanding. The statistics aren't grossed up, meaning that the tally above is most but not all delinquencies.)
From the beginning, some firms have profited off the crisis by taking homeowners' money to negotiate for loan modifications but doing little or nothing. The Federal Trade Commission issued new rules last week banning fees until a loan agreement is hammered out that the homeowner finds acceptable. It also announced that it had convinced a federal court to temporarily halt operations at a Halethorpe mortgage-relief company that the agency said was taking advantage of clients.
A mortgage investors' group, meanwhile, contends that mortgage servicers -- the organizations receiving modification requests -- are themselves profiting when they choose to foreclose.
Mortgage 101 for those whose heads are spinning: Mortgage investors own the loans. Mortgage servicers oversee those loans for the investors, collecting the monthly payments and dealing with delinquency.
Servicers responding to public complaints about high levels of foreclosures vs. modifications have frequently said, "Don't blame us, we're just following the investors' guidelines." But the Association of Mortgage Investors, which says it represents private investors, pension funds and endowments, issued an "oh
yeah
?"