Would you just walk away from your home and default on the mortgage?  

Hi Dragon54u, yes I totally agree with you on this. No matter whatever are the conditions, if you had taken the loan and given the commitment, you should fulfill the same. One my escape the loan payment and can build up his credit history again, but deep inside there will be a guilt of doing such a thing. And just think if everyone does the same thing to the Banks, then banks will surely go into loss and at one given point of time will be closed, or they will stop paying loans. Then what you will do, when you will not get loan for any emergency or for whatever purpose in future ? Why to just think of ourself, also think about the others as well. Bank does not own any money, it the money of the people only which they rotate and manages. And above all I feel we must repay whatever we own, if not in good financial condition, you can take time, but should not cheat. Sooner or later you will get the fruit of your cheating for sure. Just my views.

Really , there is no shame in walking away. I have had this done in my family. Do it leagly and it will free you, so much you will not believe it. Sometime, we just have to cut our losses and not look back. Good luck to you and I am pullin for ya.A year from now, it won,t matter. Some one , who I really respect, told me that in the housing market, 90 days is all that counts,.

If i could afford my payments, utilities, and up-keep, then i would continue to live in my home, reguardless, of how much or how little someone else thinks my home is valued at. Now, if i was in financial trouble and couldn't afford my home any longer, then not only would i walk away from it, but i would also file for bankruptcy. It's just a material matter, for cry'in out loud, life will go on without it.

that is a good idea. but isnt this like that you are some kind of a slave to give up your house to govtjust if you are unable to pay taxes

Hi, dragon54u. So they can just up and leave their home? Whom pays off of the rest of their mortgage? I am sure that the bank does it. Why won't this be on their credit report? I think that this is not right at all. A person should know just how much they will be paying on a house when they first signed the paperwork on it. If they can't see themselves paying for a house that much in the near future, then they should not accept the offer. We have too many people that are already in the state of losing their home or have already lost their home due to foreclosure. And it is not fair that a person can stay in an expensive home and then just all of a suddenly decide that they no longer wish to live on their home, placing them in the circumstances of having their home defaulted. This is just messed up. It is like a person can buy what they want and return it without paying the difference on it. Sad, sad, sad....

In the world of today, nice people come last and end up being the losers.

Of course the question remain to be seen why you are losing your house.
Did you over commit yourself?
Are you spending money on partying instead of paying the mortgage?
Are you sick?
Did you lose your job?

All those things are your responsability.
But you are not responsible for the financial crisis.
Nor are you responsible for the bank lending you more money that you could afford to repay, which is the case with what has happened in America.
The banks got greedy and lended money to anyone and everyone without checking people ability to repay the mortgage.

We have seen the same thing from credit card companies for the last two decades. They keep increasing your card limit without doing any checking on your financial situation.
And they only increase that limit for the people who can least afford it.
If you repay your credit card in full every month, they don't increase your limit.
But if you can only afford to make the minimum repayment each month, they give you more money. They love you, because you are paying a huge amount of interests on your debt every month. And the more they give you, the more money they make. Until you cannot make the minimum repayment anymore. Then they foreclose on you and take your house. It is quite common these days for people to own $50.000 on credit cards.

I would probably go ahead and pay up most of the principle so I wouldn't have all that interest to add onto the expense of the house. We don't know. Houses values may go up by the time the house is paid off. My daughter had to short sell her house and will be paying the 2nd mortgage off but not the difference. She doesn't have the money to do that and did what they agreed to. The lenders actually lowered the selling price from what the real Estate company said they could sell it for.
She also felt she had been lied to when she bought it in the first place so didn't feel too bad about walking away. She absolutely felt unsafe in living in the area.

If I lost my job and had no way to pay the bills I would walk away. There is only so much you can do at times. But I would never do this just because of the decrease in value of the property. For one thing in my experience Real Estate is always a good investment when you give it enough time. But then I would never have over extended myself to buy in the first place. I am lucky and spent 35 years in the lending field so I know the ins and outs of loans.

I do not agree that there is no shame in walking out on a mortgage that one can afford to pay. When one has lost their job and cannot pay, that is one thing, but I call defaulting on a mortgage one can pay is disgraceful.

There is a different situation going on in San Antonio where the retaining wall built by the developer failed making some of the houses unsafe. The developer plans to fix the wall, but quite a few of the homeowners do not believe they will ever feel safe in their home again.