Sally Herigstad, a freelance writer in Enumclaw, Wash., encountered problems last year when applying for a mortgage. Before offering to place a 26-percent down payment on a house, Herigstad says she and her husband had heard that getting a mortgage would be harder than it once was, but they had no clue just how difficult the process would be.

"Some of the hurdles were uneven self-employment income, a [one-time] start-up expense [from] two years earlier that the lender categorized as ongoing, and the requirement that we qualify for payments on both our old house and our new house, despite the fact that we planned to rent out the old house," she says.