Mortgage Foreclosure & Refinance Resource

More U.S. homeowners fell behind on mortgage payments or even lost their homes last month compared to a year ago, with Nevada, California, Florida and Ohio posting the highest foreclosure rates, a mortgage research company said Thursday.A total of 224,451 foreclosure filings were reported in October, up 94 percent from 115,568 in the same month a year ago, according to Irvine-based RealtyTrac Inc.

According to the reports, senior U.S. government and banking industry officials are negotiating a framework that would make it easier for certain mortgage borrowers to temporarily lock in their current interest rates and avoid losing their homes to foreclosure. Regulators have been grappling all year with how to stem the record wave of foreclosures, caused in large part by rising monthly requirements on subprime adjustable rate mortgages, or ARMs. Regulators and industry officials are focusing in on a plan that would possibly make it much easier to extend starter rates on certain existing ARMs for five to seven years, the people familiar with the matter said.

This would be aimed at borrowers who are living in their homes, not on speculators and investors. And policy makers are trying to figure out a way to do it broadly to expedite the slowed case-by-case loan modification process.

Roughly 1.5 million of these loans are slated to reset into higher monthly payments next year and another 375,000 are set to reset in 2009.