Federal laws passed between the late 1990s and mid-2000s made it almost impossible to have consumer loans and student loans discharged in bankruptcy. As a result, people who found themselves in financial distress in 2008 and 2009 figured out that a mortgage was the easiest financial obligation to walk away from.
I bailed early both times, numbers were on my side.
The problem is that those people who walked away still had to have a place to live. Rents are going higher and higher. Where I live there are some low priced houses available but most are being bought for cash by landlords who rent them out at very high rates. In some cases they are getting their initial investment back in little more than a year. People are paying five hundred a month to live in a camper trailer that wouldn’t bring one thousand dollars on the auction block. They pay a thousand or more for a tiny house that can be bought for twenty thousand dollars. If I could stand to be in the rental business I could make very good money but I have tried it before and I would rather wear worn out shoes than do it again.