Delinquencies and foreclosures among homeowners with weak credit moved higher in the first quarter, particularly in California, Florida and other formerly hot real estate markets, according to an industry report released on Thursday, the New York Times reports.

The report, published by the Mortgage Bankers Association, came as the Federal Reserve held a hearing on what regulators could do to address aggressive abusive lending practices. Also Thursday, the latest survey showed that mortgage rates this week reached their highest level in almost a year; the national average for a 30-year mortgage was 6.74 percent, up from 6.53 percent last week, according to Freddie Mac, the mortgage giant.

The delinquency report presented a mixed picture. It indicated that more homeowners with tarnished, or subprime, credit are likely to have trouble making house payments, especially as interest rates rise. But it also suggested that, at least so far, the problems have not extended very far into the larger pool of prime borrowers, whose interest rates are lower because of their stronger credit.

At the end of March, the percentage of all loans that were delinquent or in foreclosure, 6.12 percent, was little changed from the end of last year and up from 5.39 percent from March 2006.

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