Home loan bargains are turning sour - South Florida's housing slowdown is starting to spell trouble for homeowners who took out exotic mortgages during the recent boom

You've heard the pitches for home mortgages that just about anyone could get: 100 percent financing! No closing costs! One percent interest! Low, looow monthly payments!

A lot of South Floridians did indeed rush into these unconventional mortgages in search of a bargain. Now some are finding themselves trapped by monthly payments that are about to soar, even as the real estate market slumps.

The result: It's getting a lot harder for borrowers to make their payments. Mortgage delinquencies are already beginning to tick up, and more defaults down the line could dump homes for sale on a market that already has too many of them.

Cynthia Cariseo is struggling to make interest-only payments on an option adjustable-rate mortgage for the Dania Beach town house she bought last year.

Housing sales down from year ago - But mortgage rates remain at low ebb

Third quarter housing sales were down from the record-setting span a year ago, but Illinois Realtors point out that the market remains strong with mortgage interest rates remaining near 45-year historic lows.

The recently released figures from the Illinois Association of Realtors show total home sales were down 14.7 percent in the third quarter. That's 46,759 homes sold compared to 54,804 homes sold in the period July through September of 2005.

Fewer homes were sold in metro-east from July through September than that same span a year ago. St. Clair County sales were down by 16.5 percent, Monroe County numbers decreased by 11.8 percent and Madison County was off by 9.2 percent.

However, interest rates for 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages remained low, averaging 6.6 percent, according to the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp.

Greater Gateway Association of Realtors Executive Director Al Suguitan, who oversees real estate activity in Madison, Calhoun, Jersey, Fayette, Montgomery, Greene and part of Macoupin counties, said the decrease in sales is not very significant. Suguitan believes the Illinois housing market is undergoing a correction.

Homes for sale supply rises despite low mortgage rates

With sales still cooling, the supply of homes for sale continues to rise in the Oklahoma City area despite mortgage rates remaining at historic lows -- even after inching up for months.

October ended with a 5.4-month supply of homes on the market, up from a five-month supply in August and a four-month supply at the start of the year, according to The Oklahoman's analysis of data from the Oklahoma City Metro Association of Realtors. The supply was determined by dividing the number of listings for sale at the end of October by the average number of closings over the past 12 months.

"It's been slow. This (was) probably the slowest summer I've had since I've been back in Oklahoma," said Linda Finch, a Realtor associated with Paradigm Realty in Oklahoma City.

Finch said she's never had a down year in the home-selling business. She left Oklahoma for California and a new career in real estate in 1984 when her oil-business job went bust with so many others. She said she hit Contra Costa County, Calif., as it was recovering from a housing downtown, then moved back to Oklahoma City in 1989, after the worst of the oil and real estate bust here.