If you’re having trouble making your mortgage payment and fear losing your home, don’t grab the first financial life preserver that’s thrown your way.

It may sink you financially and cause you to actually lose your home.

Homeowners facing foreclosure are sitting ducks for scammers who tell consumers they can save their home but often push them into more of a financial quagmire.

While they’ve yet to see a surge of cases, officials and consumer advocates say they’re concerned that homeowners facing the loss of their home will be vulnerable to so-called foreclosure rescue scams.

The next time you buy a home and head for closing, you may be using a stylus instead of a ballpoint pen to sign your mortgage note and closing documents.

So-called e-mortgages are becoming the rage in the mortgage industry.

Century Bank has closed its first electronic mortgage in the Dallas area.

The borrowers executed their loan documents electronically by signing a stylus pad similar to those used at retail stores when you use a credit or debit card to pay for purchases.

In a tough year for the housing industry, some homebuilders are trying to attract buyers by adding new services and options to their already elaborate showrooms.

Traditionally, buyers would come to a builder’s showroom after they were already in contract, choosing from thousands of options such as countertop finishes, plumbing fixtures and flooring materials. Now, builders are trying to get buyers into those showrooms even earlier.

In December, David Weekley Homes launched a similar program, and found as many as 70 people attended the biweekly sessions for prospective buyers.

The risk of mortgage loan delinquencies rose 4.4 percent from the second quarter but remains low compared to 2003-2004 thanks to low unemployment, according to an analysis by First American CoreLogic.

The company’s Core Mortgage Risk Index, which estimates the risk of delinquencies due to fraud, collateral risk, house-price dynamics and local economies, “is increasingly driven by the fallout caused by high delinquency rates in the subprime and Alt-A markets,” CoreLogic reports.

At 1.05, the delinquency index is well below peaks in excess of 1.2 reached during the third and fourth quarters of 2003. An index of 1 equals the baseline established for the report in the first quarter of 2002.