For Don and Rebecca Spendlove, just keeping a roof over their heads has taxed their mental, emotional and physical as well as financial capabilities.

The Nipomo couple have found themselves in the same situation as millions of other Americans: Their homes are worth less than they owe, their mortgage terms are crushing their finances and the specter of foreclosure is looming.

Their struggle may be emblematic of the times. Just across their street, in fact, a home has sat vacant for more than a year, the yard untended, the windows coated with dust.

“Our neighbor … just walked away,” said Don. “He said, ‘I’m not paying.’ He just moved away.”

The Spendloves find their situation embarrassing, but they’re willing to talk about it in hopes they can help others avoid the pitfalls that led them to a crisis they never expected to face.

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Martin Montes, 37, a Culver resident, didn’t see it coming.

He bought a new home in 2007, when he had a good job and the economy was fine. But a year later a slew of events - a new baby, a reduction in his weekly hours at Bright Wood Corp., from 40 to 28, and a high-interest loan - made mortgage payments impossible to pay.

It’s a story that’s becoming increasingly familiar and like many, Montes thought he had no choice but to wait for the bank to foreclose on his property.

In the fourth quarter last year, 4,680 homes in Oregon were in foreclosure proceedings - an increase of 26 percent from the third quarter, according to the state Department of Consumer and Business Services.

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Allegations of mortgage fraud are on the upswing

Three years ago, Donna Robbins tried to use her soaring equity to remodel her house in this Napa Valley community.

Instead, she says she got cleaned out.

Robbins claims that friends from church who ran a finance company agreed to arrange a home equity loan to pay for a new kitchen, bathrooms and landscaping.

As with most financial transactions, there were papers to sign. But Robbins says that what she was told were loan documents were in fact papers that transferred the title to her property.

These new owners subsequently defaulted on the mortgage, according to public property records and a lawsuit Robbins filed in Napa County Superior Court. Now, the house she had inherited from her parents is in foreclosure and Robbins is facing eviction, along with her boyfriend and their seven children.

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It is possible to get all the finance you need to make home improvements by refinancing your home loan with a Cash-Out Refinance Mortgage Loan. If there is sufficient equity on your home you will be able to get all the money needed to pay for the materials and professional fees with a quick and hassle free approval process.

Financing through cash out refinance loan is a cheap source of funds that can provide you with additional benefits like a reduction on the interest rate you pay for your current mortgage or a reduction on the loan installments you pay every month and thus reducing your overall debt exposure. This can also increase your credit score because your income/debt ratio will improve too.

How Does It Work?

If you have a mortgage on your home and you have paid already some installments or if your property’s value has increased, you probably have some equity on your home. This equity is an excellent source of inexpensive funds. But instead of using a home equity loan you can request a cash-out refinance loan.

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By April, 2009, hundreds of thousands of option ARM mortgages will begin resetting, bringing on a fresh wave of foreclosures

The American homeowner must feel like one of those characters in an old cartoon who has just been hit by a falling piano. After dusting himself off and touching the large bump on his head, he probably doesn’t expect another piano to be dangling overhead. But he’d be wrong.

But what’s often funny in a cartoon is anything but in real life. With the subprime mortgage crisis already crippling the U.S. economy, some experts are warning that the next wave of foreclosures will begin accelerating in April, 2009. What that means is that hundreds of thousands of borrowers who took out so-called option adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) will begin to see their monthly payments skyrocket as they reset. About a million borrowers have option ARMs, but only a fraction have already fallen due.

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Interest rates on 30 year mortgages are above 6% - their highest levels since March. Is the end of low interest rates on the horizon? Here are some top tips on what you need to know if you want to refinance.

1. Get the lowdown

Today’s interest rate is at 6.08% according to Freddie Mac. Just last week that rate was at 5.58%.

That has a lot of people wondering if they’ve missed the ideal time to refinance. Let’s take a look at what’s driving the run-up.

Issue number one here is inflation concerns. Some economists think the Federal Reserve will begin raising interest rates later this year to fight the growing threat of inflation.

Remember, the Fed has cut rates seven consecutive times since last September. The party can’t last forever.

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It was one of the Bay Area’s most trusted banks. Now some consumer advocates question its lending practices in certain East Bay neighborhoods.

The bank was World Savings, bought by Wachovia in mid-2006. They were a popular lender. But now some advocates want to know why so many of their loans were made in some of Oakland’s low-income minority neighborhoods.

“It’s very frightening, it’s upsetting,” said Annie McKenzie.

“Our neighborhoods are becoming blight because of all the foreclosures,” said Diane Busby.

Welcome to zip code 94621, where homes are going vacant and residents are uneasy.

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Wall Street credit markets are still sluggish and skittish, and questions still hang over mortgage lending in the public mind, but refinancing mortgage and consumer debt still is not only possible but remains a good way to get ahead, lenders and borrowers say.

Getting a lower interest rate on home debt, reducing a monthly house payment, consolidating debt, getting cash out of home equity for a special purpose - all are still available to homeowners with some equity in their home.

Having “good” credit helps, but even that isn’t always necessary, to hear Shawn Mason tell it.

The Moore man refinanced the loan on his home, a 1,410-square-foot house built in 1968, specifically to get his credit back in shape following bankruptcy.

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A committee vote in Congress doesn’t provide much comfort to families staring down foreclosure, but the Senate Banking Committee approved a bill Tuesday that could set the framework for the federal government’s answer to the housing-market mess.

The bill - a bipartisan compromise that passed Sen. Chris Dodd’s committee in a 19-2 vote - could break a deadlock in Congress and among Bush administration officials on the foreclosure crisis that is affecting millions of American homeowners.

Under the bill, the Federal Housing Administration would back as much as $300 billion in new mortgages, allowing lenders to refinance the most threatened home loans. The cost of failed loans would be covered not by taxpayers but by fees paid by mortgage originators to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the federally chartered companies that buy mortgages from banks and other lenders.

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Criticism of the mortgage bill passed last week by the House focused on prospects for federal money potentially helping to bail out speculators or some overextended borrowers who put themselves at risk.

But the bill is less risky to taxpayers than its critics claim, requiring substantial new accountability by affected borrowers and lenders alike. And it also goes much farther than simply bailing out borrowers at risk of foreclosure, by substantially reforming regulation of the Federal Housing Administration and the two big government-sponsored enterprises that finance mortgages, known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Prior to the vote last week, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke had endorsed the bill’s approach, while not endorsing any particular legislation.

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