The Banks’ Next Hot Zone: Home Equity Delinquencies

"Delinquencies on home equity loans and lines of credit are at their highest levels in a decade. That should give Wall Street and investors pause. Because when home equity borrowers, default on their lines of credit, bankers don’t have first recourse to the underlying property, the home. Mortgage bankers who own the mortgage on the home do. That’s why bankers are growing ashen-white over looming losses, and why they are scrambling to fix this problem now."