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Excerpt: Walking Away From Your Mortgage

May 6, 2010 10:34 AM

A million Americans who could afford to pay their mortgages on homes "underwater" walked away instead. It's the "in thing" one tells Morley Safer in a report to be broadcast this Sunday, May 9, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

Strategic Default: Walking Away From Mortgages
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by JCinMI May 14, 2010 2:09 AM EDT
When we purchased our house nearly 10 yrs ago the bank tried to talk us into a more expensive loan/house; nearly 50k more. When we did finally purchase, we found one for considerably less. With a conventional loan the house was appraised at 105, we got it for 92 and felt we were being responsible. Now that same house after nearly 20k of improvements is worth only 45, thank you MI.
Our work has been cut, the bank won't work with us because we are not ?broke enough?, what they offered was to lower the payments for 2 yrs but add 10yrs to the mortgage, and then the payments would return to their original amount. We can?t afford to leave but no longer can afford to stay.
Even when we thought we were being ?responsible?, nice people don?t always finish first.
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by screwednomore May 13, 2010 3:53 PM EDT
The hard part about this is we bought our house and the bank and appraiser said your house is worth a good deal more than you paid. We put 30,000 more into it to make it nice for us to live in and after 4 months the house lost 100,000 in value and now is 140,000 less than our investment. Now what is so fair about that to us?
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by itsalessandr May 13, 2010 2:30 PM EDT
Please, don't be fooled by the slant 60 minutes chose to put on this story. These homeowners are "hedging" their homeownership bets in the same way that Wall Street does. The difference is Wall Street gets bailed out and these homeowners get their credit damaged for several years.

However, the REAL STORY is the banks foreclosing and defaulting home owners out of their down payments and the government pretending the loss of home equity value is not worthy of a tax deduction. Nobody should be kicked out of their home if they still have home equity built up in the home. http://www.swarmthebanks.com
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by nlaivlys May 13, 2010 2:12 PM EDT
I am in this same exact boat....and ready to walk away. I'm tired of being the hard worker and everyone else getting help. If we are going to provide help....it should be for everyone....even us RESPONSIBLE ONES!
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by homer32707 May 12, 2010 9:17 PM EDT
One thing people need to understand here is that people who can afford to pay are getting screwed right now. These people bought houses and the value of them has gone down due to others who could never afford a house buying and defaulting. You can blame the mortgage industry all you want, but if you don't read your contract there is nobody to really blame but yourself. These people who couldn't afford the house are now getting helped to stay in it, but those who could afford it get to keep paying for a house that has been devalued by the people who are now being helped. Then the government bails out the banks, and they keep the cash and don't offer any help. While I agree that walking away from a debt isn't something I would do normally, it's hard to argue that the people who have morals get screwed while everyone else gets ahead.
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by screwednomore May 10, 2010 5:39 PM EDT
People love to be herded in whatever direction they are supposed to go in. Decided by who? Herded by who? You must study, use your mind and make the right decision for you and your family. Morals have nothing to do with business contracts and business decisions. That is why those decisions are easy to make by those doing the herding. Most of the comments here are probably written by mortgage or real estate people thinking of themselves and what they have to lose. Stand strong.
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by newsjunkie461 May 10, 2010 4:52 PM EDT
I sometimes have to "not watch" 60 Minutes for a few weeks, after stories like this one. I get very worked up, but the show never offers any advice about how to protest the evil goings on described in the story. The spoiled 20 somethings in the story are pathetic and appalling. The house that they are currently "squatting" in, looks like a terrific house. It looked liked it had high end features in the kitchen, and the rest of the house looked great, too. They are young, and the value of their house should return over the years and decades! Yes, decades! I don't think that homes were supposed to be bought for instant wealth. The housing markets that were shooting up, doubling and tripling in a few years were not believable, or sustainable. The housing market in my area has been stable for over a century. Nobody gets rich instantly for doing nothing. Over the years, the house slowly increases in value. Quite a concept, isn't it!

I know that some folks were unscrupulously duped as part of the recent/current mortgage mess, but the spoiled brats in your story seemed smart enough to know the responsibilty of their loan, and they have the ability to pay it. And the website "walkaway.com" is even more disgusting than the homeowners in the story. Very unsettling.
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by TCMICH10 May 10, 2010 1:57 PM EDT
I watched this program and these people (walking away from their mortgages) are disgusting -- nothing but greed. I hope this sits on their credit rating forever and no bank will give them a mortgage again. Where is people's patience to keep their investment and ride it out? Most of these people on the program were young couples -- no morals, no backbone, makes me sick. Total cop out.
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by Aymhyup May 10, 2010 11:49 AM EDT
This is absolutely rediculous to walk away from a mortgage even though you can still afford the payment just because the house is worth less. Would or could they walk away from a car loan just because the car value goes down as soon as it was driven out of the dealership?? After all the repo man can come and get the vehicle if payments aren't made. Won't affect the credit score..NOT!!
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by brazeltonbh May 10, 2010 11:32 AM EDT
This is stealing - and a very selfish thing to do. As an employer, I will not hire anyone who has simply walked away from a contract when thet could have kept their word.
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