Quad City Foreclosures
Here is a slice of life from Rock Island, IL, where you can see what is going on with foreclosures in middle America. The creative mortgages are coming home to roost:

Mortgage foreclosures spiked in Rock Island County and inched upward in Scott County in 2006, and are on track for another barn burner if all else stays equal, court records indicate. Of the 1,955 mortgage foreclosures in Rock Island County over the past five years, there were an average 430 cases a year from 2003 through 2005. But the number spiked to 537 cases in 2006, court records indicated. The number of Scott County foreclosures have inched upward steadily since 2004, and court record keepers say the number of filings have been brisk since the first of the year. The loss of jobs, unexpected medical expenses and divorces are the three most common reasons people get into financial difficulties that often lead to losing their homes, said Moline attorney Thomas Blade, who represents banks and other lenders in mortgage foreclosure cases. Most of the homeowners in financial trouble own homes valued at no more than $150,000, he said. "They are like 60 percent of the American population living paycheck-to-paycheck," he said...Rock Island attorney Bruce Buckrop said he has definitely seen a rise in the number of his clients facing financial difficulty because of adjustable rate mortgages (ARM). The trend toward ARMs and aggressive mortgage lending practices has increased over the past five years, he said. Some borrowers are wooed into an adjustable interest rate by an attractive low starting rate of 5 percent interest that increases six months later to 8 percent and then 11 percent, he said. An 11 percent mortgage rate is "a killer rate" that can take a $400 a month house payment to $950, Mr. Buckrop said. Sometimes the only thing he can do to help clients is to put them through bankruptcy if they want to save their house. Bankruptcy laws protect the homeowner from losing their homes, if it is a first mortgage, but rids a creditor from credit card and other debt.