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The housing crisis looks like it's just getting worse

WASHINGTON- The foreclosure hammer is hitting ever harder. People lost their homes at the highest rate on record in the first three months of the year, and late payments soared to a new high, too - an alarming sign that the housing crisis and its damage to the national economy may only get worse.

WASHINGTON- The foreclosure hammer is hitting ever harder. People lost their homes at the highest rate on record in the first three months of the year, and late payments soared to a new high, too - an alarming sign that the housing crisis and its damage to the national economy may only get worse.

Dumping more empty homes on an already glutted market also is likely to put a further drag on home prices - extending a vicious cycle.

Americans' equity in their homes - usually their single biggest asset - now has dropped to the lowest level on record in figures going back to the end of World War II. Homeowners' portion of equity fell to 46.2 percent, which means that the amount of debt tied up in their homes exceeds the equity they have built up.

Watching their home values sink, consumers have pulled back on spending, a factor in the economy's slowdown. Buoyed by rebate checks, shoppers did get back in the buying groove in May, but analysts predict that consumers - pounded by galloping gasoline prices - will still be cautious.

Nearly 1 percent, or roughly 447,723 loans, fell into foreclosure during the January-to-March period, the Mortgage Bankers Association said yesterday in its quarterly snapshot of the mortgage market. That surpassed the previous high of 0.83 percent over the last three months of 2007.

The report also found that more homeowners slipped behind on their monthly payments. The delinquency rate jumped to 6.35 percent - or 2.87 million loans - compared with 5.82 percent for the previous three months. Payments are considered delinquent if they are 30 or more days past due.

Both the rate of new foreclosures and late payments were the highest on record going back to 1979.

Homeowners with tarnished credit who have subprime adjustable-rate loans took the hardest hits. But problems also cropped up with loans to more creditworthy borrowers. The percentage of such loans falling into foreclosure was 0.54 percent, compared with 0.41 percent at the end of last year. Late payments rose to 3.71 percent from 3.24 percent. *