Walking away from homes (impending foreclosures) -- now on Nightline

[Bozita]

This is a heads-up.

[zalinda]

1. I've already decided

if things get too bad, I'm walking away from my house. A mortgage and property taxes, it's killing me, and I'm lucky I have a 30 year mortgage with non-adjustable rate. But, if something else comes up, I'm walking.

zalinda

[bullimiami]

4. here in coastal florida taxes and insurance are off the charts.

we dont live near the beach but still east of 95 and we have to have windstorm insurance, flood insurance, homeowners insurance and high taxes. its rough.

[Captain Angry]

2. It's been happening for a while.

My friend's neighbor disappeared overnight one time.

They didn't think much of it when they saw newspapers piling up. Or when the lawn went unmowed. But when the bank sent somebody out to inspect the place, the neighbors came out to see what was up.

They started peeking in the windows and saw huge piles of packaging.

Apparently, the people who had lived in that house knew they were going to skip town. So they went out and charged a significant amount on credit cards, took the stuff and hit the road. They left the bills and the house behind.

[TahitiNut]

3. Some can get "deed in lieu of foreclosure"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deed_in_lieu_of_foreclosure

The interesting thing about this is that the lender quite often will not accept such an offer and NOT strictly because the outstanding indebtedness of the borrower exceeds the current fair market value of the property. No. Not by a long shot. In fact, many (disreputable?) lenders have ways to make insane "service charges" against the property when they determine that the owner is in distress.