As a Realtor, I remember when this stated to get out of hand.  Banks actually enjoyed the foreclosure market because it allowed them to set up a profit center for marketing foreclosures.

What they did was put the foreclosure on the market at a price they would clear extra money.  Forget the bargains, they did a BPO and an appraisal, estimated the repairs, did some minor cosmetic stuff, sold it as is and put it on the market at a price to generate a profit.  So $190,000 was owed on the house so they priced it at $235,000 in competition with the owner sellers, then they offered bonus to sell quickly and when a offer came they were acceptable to lower price as is, knowing the cost of repairs they were avoiding.

Then poor management practices caused them to delay getting closure for the money because they would take from 3 weeks to 3 months to make a decision.  Time was not money to the bankers.  We did one short sale that took 3 months to get a decision on our offer, and we did one sale that took 2 weeks to get the deed transferred from Ginnie Mae, after it had been on the market for months. The funding was delayed so long the buyer had to rent a hotel waiting to get moved in.

Keep in mind that in Texas this forclosure by law had to be sold on the courthouse steps and the lender set the starting bid at what he owed and 99% of the time the lender bought it back on the steps when the book could have been closed and they could have had the money owed them, but greed caused them to buy it back, wanting to make extra money.

Now they have stashed the huge salaries they were getting while this was going on and they want to retire to the Condo they bought in Grand Cayman, or the island they bought with that huge 2 million per year salary the received to practice poor management.  As for me, I say let them give back all that money they got paid, sell the million dollar homes they live in, then we can talk about what to do.

I am losing money on the stock market also, so I guess we have to do somthing but let them pay first.

Those banks had 15 levels of management, that is why decision were so hard, now they all get off the hook free, I say, let them pay.  If my business fails due the the Real Estate market they helped create, will they bail me out, I don't think so.