Late payments on home equity loans climbed to a 1½-year high in the opening quarter of this year, while delinquencies on credit card bills fell, painting a mixed picture of how people are managing their debt. After a five-year boom, the housing market tanked last year. The combination of rising interest rates and falling house prices clobbered some homeowners — especially those with tarnished credit histories and adjustable-rate mortgages. Late payments and new foreclosures for those borrowers spiked to all-time highs in the first quarter, according a separate survey by the Mortgage Bankers Association, released last month. The Home Equity Sharing Manual

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