Congress should oblige bankers to modify mortgages for homeowners who are in trouble on their home loans instead of foreclosing, a new Housing Predictor survey has found.

It’s been a matter of debate since the housing mess outset more five years ago in many regions of the country, and especially since foreclosures hit record all-time highs. The foreclosure crisis has now impacted 7-million homeowners and another 8-million are forecast to be foreclosed with 1.7 million in serious default, more than 90-days late with their mortgage payments.

A large majority or 62 percent of respondents to the survey said that banks and mortgage companies should be required to modify mortgages for homeowners at risk of foreclosure. The other 38 percent said banks should not be forced to do so, despite the fact they offered mortgages to anyone who could sign their name on a loan application, and then turned around and sold most mortgages off to the secondary investment market.

Much of the Dodd-Frank Financial reform legislation still has to be debated in Congress and worked out by regulators before changes can be implemented in financial markets, including mortgage lending. But without re-implementing the Glass-Steagall Act, which restrained bankers following the Great Depression it seems inevitable that financial markets are in for a second financial crisis.