We all know what the traditional American dream is supposed to be: Owning a home. But that dream hasn't worked out so well for a lot of people these days. It's caused a lot of folks to wonder if that American dream shouldn't be changed a bit. Maybe it's better to rent.

The Wall Street Journal recently ran an interesting story about the fear and anxiety that a home can cause when its owners are struggling to make their mortgage payments. The threat of foreclosure is a terrifying one. It's certainly no American dream.

I've long argued that renting actually makes better sense for many people. During the housing boom, though, everyone wanted to own a house. People viewed homes as quick money-makers. Of course, we've since learned what a fallacy that notion is.

A lot of people have since learned that it's nice not to have a huge mortgage payment due every month. Sure, you'll have to make those monthly rent payments, and they can be high, too. But you won't have to worry about maintenance. Those costs — try calling a plumber on a Saturday night — can be unexpectedly high, even in a newer home.

I often tell my wife that I was born to be a renter. I hate doing repair work, and I barely tolerate mowing the front lawn. I dream of living in an apartment. When the kitchen sink won't drain, I'd be able to call our landlord and let the landlord deal with the problem.

Alas, I'm in a house. It's nice for our kids. Not so nice for me, or my wallet.

So think long and hard before you decide to purchase your first home. You may discover that renting isn't all that bad.

Remember when the number of housing foreclosures first started to boom? We liked to say it was because of all those greedy homeowners who took out high-risk subprime mortgages to get into homes they couldn't really afford.

Well, today's foreclosure victim is likely to be solidly middle class, and someone who's never had trouble making mortgage payments in the past.

I knew this because I cover the real estate and mortgage industries for several newspapers and magazines. But I also heard it on National Public Radio this afternoon. It was an excellent story, one that profiled the bad fortunes of the owner of a small restaurant.

For about 13 years, this restaurant owner had diligently made his monthly mortgage payments. Then the economy went sour. People stopped eating out, and the restaurant owner's business plummeted. He began taking home about $1,000 less every month. At the same time, his wife, a registered nurse, suffered a back injury. She know has to work fewer hours.

This combination means that the couple is struggling mightily to pay their mortgage on time. They're hoping to get a loan modification from their mortgage lender. But so far — like many other struggling homeowners — they've had little luck getting their mortgage lender to respond.

I appreciated this story because it paints a different picture of foreclosure. We often hear critics railing on about how the government is helping greedy or lazy homeowners save their homes, while hard-working, tax-paying citizens get nothing.

Well, this isn't really true. Many middle-class, hard-working people stand to benefit from mortgage loan modifications, if the Obama administration's loan-modification program ever actually begins to achieve its goals.

Take a close look at your own finances. What if your work hours were cut in half? What if your job disappeared? Would you be able to make your mortgage payments?

Pres. Barack Obama has put an increasing amount of pressure on mortgage companies to restructure the loans of homeowners who are struggling to make their monthly payments. Many homeowners, though, have complained that they've struggled to receive any assistance from their mortgage companies.

Many communities are reacting to this by holding mortgage clinics. During these clinics, homeowners gather to meet with mortgage counselors. The hope is that these counselors can restructure the mortgage loans of the homeowners, perhaps leaving them with a lower monthly mortgage payment, one that they don't have to struggle as mightily to make.

One example of this is the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America's Save the Dream Tour, which recently stopped in Atlanta. Forbes Magazine covered the event, which left some homeowners thrilled, and others ticked.

Those who were happy shaved dollars off their monthly mortgage payment, including one person interviewed who slashed $500 off his monthly payment. The ticked-off crowd included a woman who waited an entire day only to be told that there was nothing that could be done for her.

These events are certainly worthwhile. Problem is, they only represent drops in the bucket when it comes to the huge numbers of people across the United States who are struggling to make their mortgage payments. With the economy in the shape it is, with so many people losing their jobs, more and more homeowners are falling behind on their mortgage payments. Mortgage clinics will undoubtedly help some of these folks.

But many more, unfortunately, will lose their homes.

There was one positive of the housing slump: Mortgage interest rates kept going down.

Now that the housing market is in the early stages of a fragile recovery, mortgage interest rates are no longer falling so regularly. In fact, they're going up.

The latest report from Zillow.com shows that mortgage interest rates across the nation rose to an average of 5.36 percent for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage.

The week earlier, that average stood at 5.26 percent.

This week, the average rate for a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage loan across the country hit 4.69 percent, up from 4.62 percent one week earlier.

If you're thinking of buying a home, don't let these small increases in mortgage interest rates deter you. These rates are still historically low. Besides, you're still able to get a great bargain for housing these days in most markets. Many sellers are still desperate to move their homes, homes that have been sitting on the market for months or, maybe, a year or longer.

Sellers are still willing to compromise on everything from price and closing dates to the amount of repairs they're willing to make before a sale closes.

It makes sense to follow the path of mortgage interest rates when you're shopping for a home. But it doesn't make sense to obsess on them so much that it prevents you from making an offer on the home of your dreams.

Pres. Barack Obama wants mortgage companies to do everything in their power to prevent families from losing their homes to foreclosure. You can bet he's not thrilled with a story that ran earlier today in the USA Today.

The story highlights the plight of a Michigan family that is losing its home because it underpaid its home mortgage by seven cents.

The family, according to the story, does have a "spotty" history of paying its mortgage. But still, you'd think that with all the negative press facing mortgage lenders, and with the current presidential administration working so hard to promote loan modifications designed to keep families from losing their homes, that Bank of America, the mortgage servicer that currently holds the family's loan, would be willing to give the family a bit of leeway.

It's certainly an interesting case. The family underpaid its mortgage when a postal clerk made a seven-cent error. Bank of America, though, said that this isn't the first time the family has been delinquent. A spokesperson for Bank of America even told the USA Today that there is no story of a "7-cent foreclosure." Bank of America, in fact, has tried to work with the family on its mortgage problems, to no avail, the spokesperson said.

Like I said, it's an interesting story. It's a bit hard to feel sorry for a homeowner who's missed so many payments in the past, and then actually went the extra step of refusing help from a mortgage-servicing company. But it's hard, too, to feel sorry for Bank of America. The company's loan officers certainly helped give a boost to the mortgage crisis with all the bad loans the company passed out during the housing boom.

The story gets even more interesting when you consider that the family's home loan was originally taken out by Countrywide, which Bank of America eventually bought. Countrywide has become a symbol of the mortgage industry's incompetence, a deserved symbol. Countrywide is famous, basically, for being one of the biggest dispenser of bad mortgage loans during the housing boom.

So, who do you root for in a story like this? Beats me. But it shows pretty clearly just how screwy the mortgage industry became during those heady days of the residential housing boom.