More than 10 percent of home owners have missed at least one mortgage payment in the January to March period, up from a record-setting 9.5 percent in December 2009, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Wednesday.

About 4.3 million home owners – or 8 percent of all Americans with a mortgage – have either missed at least three months of payments or are already in foreclosure.

Jay Brinkmann, MBA chief economist, said he doesn’t believe the foreclosure crisis is getting worse – but it’s not getting better fast. It's going to take a while, he said. A bad situation that's not getting worse is still bad.

Source: Associated Press, Alan Zibel