hey Russ,

how can you discuss foreclosure with ease as going to McDonald's for a cup of coffee? No body forced anyone into a house. When a person buys a home they make a commitment to buy and pay the mortgage. The kind of thinking you are portraying is definitely not a winning attitude. If this nation wasnt inundated with advice to "walk away" we would be in a better place.

Also I believe you forgot to mention that the mortgage companies have a right to other assets a person has when letting a house go into foreclosure, they can even garnish wages- remember homeowners when signing that note made a personal guarantee.

Yael,

You are so wrong in your thinking and I will go to bat on this.  Yes many people made mistakes buying homes that they never should have.  Amercians wanted newer and bigger and it caught up to them.  Also the mortgage lenders, banks, loan officers, all sold products that weren't the best of products to get people into these homes.  It was all "right" if the home prices rose but they didn't.  So we as a nation are paying for it. 

Yes banks could do that, but please name an instance out of the thousands of foreclosures that are going on that any bank has garnished wages.  Please name one.

As a mortgage loan officer and realtor I recieve too many calls from people that are on the brink and way over extended.  Should we as a nation continue this foreclosure process for years as prices continue to slide?  Should people that have no chance of selling, no chance of getting financially stable, & a chance they may get financially worse keep the home because you and others think it is wrong?  Where is the win in that?  Many rich people failed and went bankrupt before they became successful.  I believe Ray Kroc had many failures and close to financial disaster before McDonalds became a household name.

You know as well as anyone that all of the foreclosure crisis is not due to mismanagement of funds or greedy by the homeowners as you suggest, but is due to job loss.  Detroit has a high amount of foreclosure due to job loss with thousands of jobs being loss at the car companies.  Please consider this in your evaluation of your state and town situation.

Serena,

I am not saying greed at all.  You labeled it that.  The whole foreclosure mess is not any one persons, one company, one industries fault.  We all contributed to it. (appraisers, Realtors, loan officers, wholesale bank reps, lenders, banks, wall street bulk mortgage buyers, consumers, the fed).   If you relate it to a movie it would be the "Perfect storm"  I agree with you that economic conditions such as layoffs contributed it to it.  But California, Nevada, Arizona, and Florida did not have the jobs loss issue but yet they are in the same foreclosure mess.  And Detroit didn't start the mess.  The sub-prime collapse was due to the banks and buyers of mortgages realizing that they had made a mistake and underestimated the risks of those mortgages. It was all good as long as the home values went up.  And then the market hiccuped!   The banks and buyers of sub-prime mortgages no longer wanted to buy them because of the risks.  The death of an industry.  I have many friends that were with big companies such as Chase Manhattan for over 10 years making 6 figures that no longer have a job.  I feel for them.  What should they do with their houses, 2nd homes they can't afford?  I think Yael might send them some money.  Should they "walk away" or should they use up their retirement money or their kids college money to pay for a house that they can't afford.  Many of these people have no career path even.

There are many reasons for this mess.  The sniffles developed into a cold and now into pneumonia.  

Russ, its a shame your part of the "GIVE ME" mentality. Your make your own destiny.

for every Challenge there is a solution, however i guess your solution is to walk away.... oh wait.. I should give them money..

Yael,

You think people that had good jobs with companies that no longer exist aren't trying or didn't plan?.  That they have no chance of making a quarter million a year to pay for their $700,000 house that is now worth $550,000 are not trying?  Do you really think you can over come everything with "making your own destiny"  I think that you haven't lived life long enough to realize that sometimes you have to start over, you have to have the courage to admit you made a mistake and accept it.  Life isn't fair sometimes.  Sometimes some families have more tragedies and financial hardship than others.  They are not any less of a person, there sometimes isn't a solution!  People don't ask to be laid off, they don't ask to get sick with cancer or get financially broke.  Life happens,  you sometimes have to roll with it.  Make the best of the situation.  For some people the best solution is to walk away.

I have never worked at a company for 12 years and been laid off,  I have never been so sick that I couldn't go to work and pay my bills,  I have never gotten myself in so much debt that I couldn't get out.  But I empathise with the people that have those issues,  I want them to be successful, to have a good life.  To be happy with what they have.  Life is a funny thing, sometimes it is great and sometime it sucks.

What I say is "give me a break"  Life is too short to be spent digging out of a hole that is only going to get worse in the future and will only create more problems for their families.  I'm not God to judge people on what they did.  Whether it is right or wrong.  I would rather help them get back on the right path to financial stability.