home foreclosures

US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke calls on the government to take action to stem the increasing number of home foreclosures.

Congress is struggling over what to do about the epidemic of home foreclosures. Senators told some of the nation's biggest bankers Thursday, that they should do their part to help homeowners.

If they don't, Congress might turn to bankruptcy judges to rewrite the terms of mortgages — as they already do for car loans and even vacation homes.

There is growing concern that the home foreclosure crisis may worsen next year as lenders are hit by a new category of loans that haven't caused much trouble.

Bank analysts say they expect delinquency rates on so-called "option ARMs" to continue rising, and those loans could cause as much trouble as subprime loans did.

The number of homes in some stage of being repossessed more than doubled in the three months to June, a report shows.

California leads the nation in home foreclosures. But one builder outside Los Angeles found a way to unload his properties.

He auctioned off entire blocks of brand new homes. Suddenly, houses that nobody wanted turned red-hot.

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On Capitol Hill this week, lawmakers are set to continue to grapple with the best response to the rising tide of home foreclosures.

But the Bush administration says it has a solution in place: A nine-month old mortgage refinancing program run by the Federal Housing Administration.

The Federal Reserve chairman has urged mortgage lenders and the government to do more to prevent foreclosures.

Ben Bernanke's comments Monday night come as home foreclosures continue to spread. His views differ from that of the Bush administration, which wants only the industry to deal with the problem.

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