[JTHomes]

I’m not talking about walking out on 2 years of car payments. I know people living in modest homes with 20 years left on the mortgage who’s property value has declined by 70%, putting them 100K under water. The market is not coming back to fix that type of problem. Better to walk away, the bank gets the house back, and start over. The bank puts the recourse in the mortgage contract specifically for that scenario. They entered the contract as willingly as the buyer, and share the risk. I don’t know why some people come down so hard on folks who make a rational decision to walk away. I’m current on my mortgage right now, and I like my house, but with my neighborhood in decline, and being far underwater, my only way out is to walk away. It may tip that way before long.

[A Navy Vet]

Sorry, but you owe. You signed a contract. There has never been a guarantee that your property would appreciate or depreciate. Real estate is like any other investment - a roll of the dice, according to the macro-economics of a given time.

Still, I'm sorry your having such troubles. I blame it all on the Fedgov and their insistence that banks and other lenders give loans to the unqualified which caused the RE feeding frenzy which crashed the RE market which crashed the stock market which crash many economies around the World. Best of luck to you, sincerely.

BTW, if you can hang in there, property values will eventually increase - they're not making more land and the US population is increasing.

[netmilsmom]

>>I don’t know why some people come down so hard on folks who make a rational decision to walk away. <<

That rational decision is stealing. And because people have done this and flooded the market with foreclosed homes, MY HOUSE is worth less. Nice.

Have you ever taken an economics class?

[CharacterCounts]

Better to walk away, the bank gets the house back, and start over.

Not quite that easy. When the debtor signed the note, he signed personally. In most states, absent bankruptcy relief, the debtor still owes the bank the difference between the foreclosure sale price and the original debt. In your scenario, if the debtor "walks away" he still owes the bank $100,000.

Despite the current mess, eventually the paperwork will be sorted out and recorded, giving clear title to the bank. That is when the banks will start selling these deficiencies to third party collectors and the fun will really begin.