WASHINGTON — A record number of homeowners got an unpleasant notice in their mailboxes this spring that their mortgages were being foreclosed.

The grim prospect is that thousands more of those notices will crop up in mailboxes in coming months as the steepest slump in housing in 16 years contributes to a widening mortgage crisis.

More than 2 million families are facing the prospect of seeing their adjustable-mortgage payments rise sharply over the next two years, possibly to levels that many will be unable to pay.

The largest number of foreclosures and delinquencies have occurred in subprime mortgages, loans extended to people with weak credit histories. But quarterly data released yesterday by the Mortgage Bankers Association indicated the problem is now spreading to other types of mortgages.

The MBA report showed the number of homeowners who got foreclosure notices in the April-June quarter hit an all-time high of 0.65 percent, up from 0.58 percent in the first three months of the year. It marked the third consecutive quarter that a new record has been set.

Doug Duncan, the MBA's chief economist, said the worsening performance was the result of two major factors — heavy job losses in the Midwest states of Ohio, Michigan and Indiana, a region hard hit by heavy losses in the auto industry and other manufacturing industries, and the collapse of previously booming housing markets in California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona.

He said there were also significant problems in the neighboring states of Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee and Pennsylvania.

Analysts said the problems in the formerly red-hot housing markets of California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona reflected, in part, speculators walking away from mortgages they can no longer afford. They had jumped into the market during the boom, hoping to take advantage of rapidly rising prices by quickly reselling.

But now with the inventory of unsold homes at record levels, many speculators are defaulting on their mortgages, dumping more homes on an already-glutted market.

The report did not break out numbers for Hawai'i, which also has seen an increase in foreclosures.

A recent report by RealtyTrac, an Irvine, Calif.-based real-estate research firm, showed that O'ahu's home foreclosure rate rose 68 percent in the first half of the year compared with a year earlier. However, the O'ahu rate was still the fourth-lowest among large U.S. metropolitan areas.

Some 286 foreclosure actions were made against homes on O'ahu in the first half, up 68 percent from about 170 during the first half of 2006, according to RealtyTrac. RealtyTrac said O'ahu foreclosure filings equated to one per 1,151 households — fourth lowest among 100 major metro areas.

Nationally, the rising defaults in subprime mortgages have roiled financial markets in recent weeks, sending stock prices on a roller-coaster ride as investors wonder which big bank or hedge fund will be the next to report huge losses from subprime mortgages that were bundled into securities and resold to investors.

Both President Bush and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke tried to calm fears late last week. Bernanke pledged the central bank would "act as needed" to limit any adverse economic effects from the market turmoil.

The MBA survey found that the delinquency rate, which tracks the number of people who are behind in their payments but have not yet entered the foreclosure process, was also up sharply during the spring. It rose to 5.12 percent of all loans, the highest level in five years and up from 4.84 percent in the first quarter.

The delinquency rate for subprime loans increased more sharply to 14.82 percent — up from 13.77 percent — in the first quarter. That marked the second-highest subprime delinquency rate on record after a 14.96 percent rate in the spring of 2002.

The delinquency rate for prime loans, offered to borrowers with good credit histories, also increased, but by a much smaller amount. It rose to 2.73 percent, up 2.58 percent in the first quarter.

"With so much supply out there to compete against, borrowers who can't pay their mortgages are behind the eight ball," said Mike Larson, a real estate analyst at Weiss Research. "They can't sell to get out from under their obligations. As a result, more end up tumbling into foreclosure."

Democrats on Wednesday blamed predatory lending practices for a large part of the current problems and said they planned to introduce bills aimed at halting such practices as aggressive marketing of subprime loans to unqualified borrowers.