Need help lifting a mortgage burden?

 (Salt Lake Tribune) Roz Dalebout is fighting to keep her home, and she's not alone.

The Salt Lake City homeowner, who has faced several financial setbacks in recent years, first contacted her lender last June when she began to worry about her ability to pay her mortgage each month.

Like many others who are struggling, her only hope was a loan modification, in which a lender agrees either to lower the interest rate, extend the life of the loan or defer some of the amount owed, all of which can lower the monthly mortgage payment.

But nine months and countless calls later, she's still waiting to find out whether she qualifies. Selling her home probably isn't an option because with the housing market's downturn, she probably can't sell it for enough to cover her mortgage.

"I'm scared to death I'm going to lose my home," she said.

Nationally, hundreds of thousands of homeowners such as Dalebout are being considered for help under loan modification programs. But housing advocates, analysts and others warn that most of those borrowers will eventually lose their homes. Even the widely touted $75 billion foreclosure-prevention program pushed by the Obama administration has helped about 170,000 homeowners in the past year out of up to 4 million in need of assistance.

zOne reason for the low rate of success is the complex way mortgages are originated, sold and packaged to investors.

Original Article