It's official: We're in a recession.

[UGAalum94]

AGDee, is that really happening in significant numbers or do you think it's a case where there's a big story of one person actually doing it and now it's widely speculated that others will follow?

I can imagine that people will come to a point where they do what they have to do to provide their family with shelter, but I have a hard time really imagining that most people can ethically live with themselves if they just walk away, especially so relatively soon after the settlement. A year from now, maybe I'd expect them to be more desperate, but I'd think it would actually be far more common for folks to use the 75K to gradually pay the mortgage for a while while they looked for other work.

On the other hand, if you felt like you'd be left holding the bag with debt on a house that now wasn't worth much you'd feel victimized and entitled to see what you could get away with.

I'm surprised to learn what the KSig lawyers are discussing. I though the house alone secured mortgage debt. But if you about it, it probably doesn't make much sense for the mortgage company to pursue these other assets if the main asset is in the form of yet another, probably unsellable, house. Maybe these folks are counting on it. ETA: or the insurers either, which I guess is what you guys were actually saying. I guess they could get a judgment, but would they really want the assets they could get? Maybe yes, just to show other people that this scam, for a lack of a better word, wouldn't work.

EATA: In all this, I'm assuming the order of AGDee original list which assumed that you bought your new house before you let the other lapse into foreclosure. Sure, if you're sitting around with 75K in the bank, I'd expect either the mortgage company or the insurer to try to get that money, but I doubt they really want to own other house in this market.