A recent report indicates that the biggest financial problem people have these days is paying off their mortgages. 

The California Public Interest Research Group — Education Fund, after studying the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's public complaint database, found that the most common sort of issue within the archive was mortgage complaints. The agency began accepting complaints in July 2011, and started hearing mortgage issues the following December, bringing the total number of categories the database covers to 11. Since the CFPB began accepting mortgage complaints, it has received 138,086.

Although annual mortgage complaint volumes have fallen slightly since 2014 - while issues in the other 10 categories rose - mortgage problems remain the most common in the CFPB's archive. On a monthly basis, mortgage complaints actually come in second to debt collection issues. However, in total, mortgage issues make up 38 percent of the complaints in the CFPB's database. 

Of the chunk of complaints dedicated to mortgage issues, two particular problems make up the bulk of those looked at by the CALPIRG Education Fund. Most common, at 55 percent, are complaints dealing with an inability to make mortgage payments. More specifically, this may touch on foreclosures, collections and loan modifications. The next most common mortgage problem, at 30 percent, was borrowers having trouble making payments. These issues deal with escrow accounts, loan servicing and regular payments. 

Though mortgage issues are declining as a whole, they remain common. Home loan providers should take extra care to ensure that borrowers receive top-quality, transparent service, to ensure that customers are happy and able to pay off their debts without issue. Meanwhile, the CFPB continues to track consumer complaints and make efforts to tackle remaining mortgage problems.