Congress, meeting in a rare Saturday session, passed a housing rescue bill today aimed at sparing 400,000 struggling homeowners from foreclosure. President Bush is expected to sign the measure quickly.

The measure lets homeowners who cannot afford their monthly payments to refinance into more affordable government-backed loans rather than losing their homes. The bill also offers a temporary financial lifeline to the troubled mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and tightens controls over them.

There would be higher limits on loans that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can buy and the Federal Housing Administration can insure. The loans would be capped at $625,000.

The Senate passed the legislation, 72-13. Both New Jersey’s Democratic senators, Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez, voted for the legislation. The House approved the bill on Wednesday.

The Senate vote comes one day after a report was released showing the number of homeowners facing foreclosure had more than doubled in the second quarter of this year, compared to the same period in 2007. The report also said New Jersey’s foreclosure rate had spiked even more dramatically.

The number of foreclosure filings in New Jersey jumped 140 percent from April to June to more than 17,000, according to RealtyTrac, a California firm that monitors foreclosures. The state now has the 12th-highest rate of foreclosure filings nationally, RealtyTrac said, up from 16th in the first quarter of the year.

Nationally, the number of foreclosure filings – including default notices, auction notices, bank repossessions and other types of filings – jumped to 739,714 during the second quarter, a 14 percent increase over the first quarter and a 121 percent jump from the second quarter of last year, according to RealtyTrac.

(Source: Star Ledger / Associated Press)