How to Owe More on Your Mortgage? Get a Loan Mod

Wait, aren't loan modifications supposed to provide financial relief? Yes – if you consider a teaser mortgage rate to be a bargain.

A new report finds that seven in every ten borrowers who have received a change in their mortgage in order to forestall foreclosure actually now owe more in principal than they did when they started.

Yes, more.

Those borrowers gain in the short term, by lowering their monthly bills. But in the long run they're in more debt than when they started.