Lenders are so overwhelmed and under staffed to deal with the housing crisis on delinquent borrowers. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, the number of borrowersthat are delinquent on their home loan at least 90 days, have rose 3.6 percent at the end of December. That figure has been the highest in at least five years and almost doubled the 2 percent that has been foreclosed on.

Lenders took an average of 61 days to foreclose on a property last year up from 37 days in the year earlier, according to RealtyTrac Inc. Sales of foreclosed houses rose 4.4 percent at the same time last year when the supply of those type of houses doubled according to the Loan Performance First American CoreLogic Inc.

The lenders are letting the homeowners stay in their homes a little longer are delaying the housing declining record foreclosure rates. "Looking at the data, we see the problems but they are measurably greater than we think," says Mark Zandi from Moody's Economy.com

People are staying in the homes until they get kicked out. Some of the banks do not want these houses to be empty especially in areas with higher crime of theft andvandalism. Lenders are reluctantly foreclosing on these properties, costing them more with legal fees and time that the foreclosure process takes legally. Foreclosed homes can cost up to 15 percent of the value of the house for the lenders with the mortgage payments, taxes, insurance, andmaintenance fees.

There are homes on the market for sale and the foreclosed homeowners are still living in them because banks have not yet evicted them. Civil Court in St. Lucie County,Florida files about 44 foreclosure cases in a day, which used to be an average a month in 2005. They have 12 full time employees and 2 part time employees working on nothing but foreclosure filings and it still takes about 3 weeks for them to process then it takes another 2 months to get a court date for them.

In February, median home prices fell to and average $195,900 from a peak of 230,200 in July 2006. Although, over a 100 mortgage finance companies are out of business, mortgage servicing units are expanding with major lenders. Thomas Kelley from JPMortgage & Chase Co. expects to spend $200 million more servicing loans this year than last year. He would not say how many chase delinquent owners are still living in their homes. Few mortgage lenders will admit they allow homeowners to stay in their homes without paying their mortgages. They do evict them out but homeowners are getting away with staying a little bit longer.