Although there have been some recent bright signs in the housing market, concerns still linger. One of them has to do with mortgage resets. Explain what these are and why they may be an issue. Listen

Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"A mortgage reset occurs when you have bought a house using what's called an adjustable rate mortgage - that's where the interest rate can change - and there's some time fuse on that as to when it will change . . . one year, two years, three years; they come in different varieties. And so we say that mortgage rate resets when that fuse is up, and that adjustable rate can go either up or down. And this was a big, big problem over the last five years as people took out more and more adjustable rate mortgages during the housing boom. And then when interest rates went up, their payments went up. They couldn't afford the mortgage, and they were foreclosed upon. So, big problem. The issue now is that we've got a bunch of these coming due over the next couple of years. We're not out of the woods on these mortgage resets, and so the concern that economists have is, well, will interest rates be higher in the future, in which case, we'll have these folks with adjustable rate mortgages have their interest rate go up - their payments go up - will that set off a whole new wave of foreclosures? Or will the Federal Reserve keep interest rates lower - indeed, mortgage rates have actually been coming down recently - in which case, actually that would help people. The rate may be reset to something lower. So this is something to certainly keep an eye upon. It's inter-related with unemployment because the more that people are unemployed, the more this could be a problem. So the housing market is certainly not out of the woods yet."