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She could not have been more wrong. The process was as arduous as it was protracted. Eventually, Shipe had to move out of her old home and couch surf with friends while she waited, and waited, for approval.

"What I had thought would be a fairly straightforward loan application turned into the Inquisition," she said in her office in downtown Chicago.

Two years after the depths of the financial crisis, the pendulum is still swinging away from the days of supereasy credit, when bankers required almost no proof that a customer would be able to repay a loan. Before the housing market crashed, even industry insiders ridiculed certain popular mortgages as "NINJas" -- "no income, no job loans."

Banks are a lot pickier today. To protect themselves from defaults, they have sharply increased underwriting requirements -- and paperwork -- needed to get a loan. They've adopted less agreeable views on credit cards and other forms of revolving debt, investor properties and income history.

The crackdown comes as major banks find themselves mired in controversy at the other end of the credit spectrum. What is described by some as a technical error -- signing thousands of affidavits for foreclosures without proper review -- has turned into a political scuffle ahead of next month's U.S. elections. Facing pressure from U.S. lawmakers, Bank of America said on Friday it would halt foreclosures in all states, fueling concern that zombie outstanding loans will further hinder housing's rebound from its worst crisis since the 1930s.

Yet, as Shipe's case suggests, the market for new loans is not much more encouraging. And while foreclosures are capturing most of the headlines, barriers to credit affect far more Americans and could be a bigger drag on any recovery.

QUESTIONS FLY

Shipe never gave a moment's thought to the possibility that she would struggle to secure a mortgage.

After all, she has a credit score above 800, far higher than most Americans. And as the chief executive of the Council of Real Estate Brokerage Managers, an industry group that is affiliated with the National Association of Realtors, she happens to be an insider.

Shipe is also debt-free. In her last home she not only paid her mortgage on time, but also put an extra $1,000 per month toward the principal. To top it off, she has banked with JPMorgan Chase -- whom she approached for a mortgage -- for more than a quarter of a century.

But when Shipe applied for a jumbo loan -- over $417,000 -- toward a $630,000 town house in Chicago's affluent Lakeview neighborhood, she was told she needed 20 percent down instead of the 10 percent she was expecting. So she reluctantly used cash savings and withdrew money from her money market account.

Then came the documentation -- an onerous process that has recently become almost unbearable for solid borrowers trying to take advantage of a sluggish market and eye-poppingly low mortgage rates.

For a month, Shipe's bank proceeded to demand tax returns going back a couple of years, plus financial statements. The latter were then scrutinized closely and she was asked personal questions about old transactions.

"I could have joined the FBI in a shorter period of time and with less documentation than it took to get that mortgage," she quipped. "After what I had to go through to get that house, by the time my loan was approved I almost didn't want it anymore."