How the foreclosure crisis might affect you

With so many foreclosed houses on the market and problems with the paperwork, the housing market continues to be a mess. And it will affect everyone, The Wall Street Journal reports. Particularly hard hit are vacation homes and investment properties. Ski areas in the West and coastal areas in the East aren't having fun.

But everyone else will feel it, the Journal says.

The costs of buying a home and paying off the mortgage are likely to go up, say housing experts. The rising costs will come both during the closing and throughout the life of the loan.

At the closing, the cost of title insurance, which protects a property buyer from claims of ownership made by other people, is likely to rise, industry officials say. Title insurance is one of those annoying costs that can sneak up on a buyer during a close; premiums average around $2,000 across states. The turmoil will likely lead to pricey premiums for new homeowners.

Other costs could be felt during the life of the loan. Until the current mess, servicing loans was a low-margin, high-volume business. Servicers collect mortgage payments from borrowers and send them off to mortgage holders, and if the loan gets into trouble, they manage the foreclosure. Few doubt this process will get costlier now that it is under scrutiny from regulators and the courts. That higher cost likely will show up in higher interest rates for borrowers.

Both of these higher costs also would hit homeowners who refinance their loans.