...The group of lenders, investors and nonprofit groups, dubbed Hope Now, was created by the Bush administration in October in response to soaring mortgage defaults and home foreclosures that have caused multibilion dollar losses on Wall Street and sent stock markets plummeting. The Hope Now group said Wednesday it helped 545,000 subprime borrowers with shaky credit in the second half of last year, compared with its January estimate of 370,000. That works out to 7.7 percent of 7.1 million subprime loans outstanding in September 2007. The mortgage industry is "working hard to help more and more homeowners who are in...