As homeowners try to refinance their mortgages at lower rates, their home equity lenders are telling them, “Not so fast.” Home equity lenders are throwing roadblocks in front of their clients who want to refinance their primary mortgages. In some cases, they delay refinances for a month or more. In other cases, they block homeowners from refinancing altogether — all because of something called “resubordination.” “It can completely blow a refi out of the water,” says Christopher Cruise, senior loan officer for GOTeHomeLoans.com in Bethesda, Md.

Rising unemployment is delivering another blow to the depressed U.S. housing market. After months of declines in the number of foreclosures despite rising mortgage defaults, with a barricade of state and lender moratoriums preventing repossessions, foreclosures rose 6% in February from the month before, with 209,631 filings in all, according to Irvine, Calif.-based data firm RealtyTrac. Compared to the corresponding month a year ago, foreclosures were up 30%.

The foreclosure picture suddenly darkened again in February. More than 74,000 homes were lost to bank repossessions during the month, up from 67,000 in January, according to a regular monthly report from RealtyTrac, the online marketer of foreclosed properties. Nearly 1.2 million have been lost since the foreclosure crisis hit in August 2007. The number of foreclosure filings rose 6% during the month after falling 10% in January. Worse, filings leaped nearly 30% compared with February 2008.

Mortgage lending activity continued to reduce in January with only 23,400 loans for house purchase completed, down from 32,400 in December and 48,600 in January 2008, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML). The decline in house purchase lending was spread evenly between first-time buyers and home movers. There were 14,500 loans to home movers, down from 20,200 in December and 30,600 in January 2008. There were 8,900 loans to first-time buyers, down from 12,200 in December and 18,000 in January 2008.