Queensland and Western Australian problem loans have driven national loan arrears to new highs. But, the Reserve Bank says, the overall arrears level is still "relatively low" and household borrowers generally are showing "resilience".RBA deputy governor Ric Battelino told a conference in Sydney yesterday that the recent deterioration in loan arrears was centred on parts of Queensland and Western Australia.He tied the two regions' problems to a sharp increase in housing lending and in house prices in those areas; a relaxation of credit standards, and greater speculation on property between 2006 and 2008. This home-lending boom was followed by higher-than-average falls in employment in those areas during the 2009 downturn, he said.Battelino described recent first-home owners as "another potential source of vulnerability", but said that so far they "do not seem to be disproportionately represented in loan arrears." But, while households remained resilient, increased borrowing over the past 15 years meant they were now "significantly more sensitive" to interest rate changes, he said.Fitch Ratings announced yesterday that its measures of mortgage arrears were at their highest since it began tracking mortgage arrears in 2004. It attributed much of the rise to the floods and Cyclone Yasi, but also noted the effect of November's RBA rate rise.Fitch's measure of 30-plus days delinquencies in the Australian prime RMBS sector reached 1.79 per cent in the March quarter, up 42 basis points from the December quarter. The 30-plus days delinquency rates in low-doc pools reached 6.74 per cent. Both figures were records.An alternative measure of home loan arrears from Standard & Poor's shows that arrears, while near historical highs, they not yet setting new records.On the S&P measure arrears of 30 days or more rose to 1.79 per cent in February 2011 from 1.64 per cent in January 2011. The S&P measure of the high is 1.84 per cent in January 2009.