国际英语新闻：Serious U.S. mortgage delinquencies rise 20% in 3rd quarter

WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- Serious delinquencies among U.S. prime mortgages rose nearly 20 percent in the third quarter from the prior quarter, indicating that the country's housing financial market remains in trouble, according to a report released by U.S. banking regulators on Monday.

    The report by the Office of Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision, which are banking regulatory agencies of the Treasury Department, covered about two-thirds of all U.S. mortgages.

    It said that national bank and thrift servicers implemented more than 680,000 home loan modifications and payment plans in the third quarter of 2009 to avoid preventable foreclosures. But the percentage of current and performing mortgages dropped for the sixth consecutive quarter to 87 percent of the servicing portfolio.

    The report found that serious delinquencies among prime mortgages, the largest category of mortgages, at the end of the third quarter increased to 3.6 percent of prime mortgages, up almost 20 percent from the previous quarter and more than double ayear ago.

    The report defined "serious delinquencies" as those loans 60 days or more past due and loans to delinquent bankrupt borrowers.

    Big U.S. banks and thrifts carried out 2.4 million home loan modifications, trial period plans or payment plans in the quarter, spurred mostly by the government's Home Affordable Modification Program.

    Mortgage servicers carried out 274,000 trial plans in the third quarter, up 240 percent from the second quarter when the plan was launched.

    But only 1 percent of those had been converted to permanent modifications as of Sept. 30, 2009, the report said.

    The collapse of the housing bubble triggered the global financial crisis that plunged the U.S. economy into recession in December 2007.

    To help homeowners keep their homes and stimulate the housing market has become one of the top priorities of Obama administration's economic policies to tackle the crisis.

    Besides the Make Home Affordable program, the U.S. government also launched first time home buyers' tax credit program.

    With delinquencies still soaring, economists worry that the U.S. housing market recovery will take longer time.