U.S. Mortgages in Default Still Growing

Even with low mortgage rates, the number of mortgages in default continued to grow at the nation's banks in the third quarter as even prime borrowers increasingly fell behind on their mortgage payments.

For the first quarter ever, the number of homes in foreclosure with mortgages serviced by U.S. national banks topped the one million mark, according to news released Monday by the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

The percentage of prime mortgages that were 60 or more days past due doubled from the July-to-September period a year earlier. Plus, more than half of all homeowners whose payments had been lowered through loan modification defaulted again.

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