As borrowers desperately try to rework their mortgages they keep running into the same old barrier, the mortgage companies are so buried with reworks they can not get to everyone. Between TARP and Making Home Affordable program and other expectations many of the larger mortgage lenders just do not have the manpower and resources to support all the borrowers looking to rework the mortgages that need reworking.

Somewhere on earth, there must be a more difficult task than this: persuading American mortgage companies to lower payments for homeowners who can no longer afford their loans. But as Karina Montenegro struggles to accomplish this feat for a troubled borrower, she strains to imagine a more futile pursuit.

When Vasco and Mrjama Lukic's American housing dream turned into a nightmare, they managed to escape through a long and complicated process known as a "short sale."

The Yugoslavian-born couple and their sons built a home in West Orange, N.J., where they hoped to settle and enjoy the fruits of many hard hours of labor.

Home prices are at their most affordable in many years, which has opened up homeownership to many who had been locked out during the housing boom. And now, the federal government -- and many states - are launching plans to hook up buyers of repossessed properties with very attractive terms.

The number of U.S. households on the verge of losing their homes dipped in May from April, and the annual increase was the smallest in three years.