WASHINGTON — The mortgage crisis is dragging on the economic recovery as more home owners fall behind on their payments.
Analysts expect improvement soon, but the number of homeowners in default or at risk of foreclosure will have a lingering effect on the broader economy.
More than 10 percent of homeowners with a mortgage had missed at least one payment in the January-March period, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Wednesday, which is a record high and up from 9.1 percent a year ago.
A big jump in the number of borrowers who have missed three months of mortgage payments drove the increase.
One encouraging sign is that the number of homeowners just starting to show trouble is trending downward. As of March, nearly 3.5 percent of borrowers had missed one month of mortgage payments, down from about 3.8 percent a year earlier.
Around 4.3 million homeowners, or about 8 percent of all Americans with a mortgage, are at risk of losing their homes, the trade group’s top economist estimates. The homeowners have either missed at least three months of payments or are in foreclosure.
