From USAToday.com:

When Sharon Sakson was laid off recently from her job as a television writer and producer, she burned through her savings to pay the $2,400 monthly mortgage on her home. But she soon decided it didn’t make sense: Her home was worth thousands less than the mortgage she carried on it.

The home had been appraised at $390,000 when she refinanced in 2006, but she estimates it’s not worth the $320,000 it initially cost in 2004. So Sakson did what a growing number of homeowners are doing today: She stopped paying and decided to let the bank take her home.

What Sakson did is called a strategic default, or a voluntary foreclosure, and it’s fast becoming a major challenge to the government’s $75 billion effort to keep distressed borrowers in their homes. Walking away from a mortgage is serious business — it can knock 100 points off your credit score and make you ineligible for a new mortgage for seven years. Yet, about 588,000 borrowers walked away from homes last year, double the number in 2007, according to a recent study by credit-scoring firm Experian and management consultants Oliver Wyman. While home prices are rising, the increases pale compared with overall drops in home prices since 2005 that threaten to push millions more homeowners into Sakson’s predicament, owing more than their homes are worth and seeing little chance of rebuilding equity soon.

Make sure you read the rest of the article. We get a lot of calls everyday from people in this same situation. I would never suggest someone simply walk away from their home. If someone was to do a Strategic Default it should be for the benefit of completing a loan modification or a short sale. There are times when a bank will refuse to accept either of those options, unless the owner goes late.

If you are considering walking away from your home, or are running through your savings to keep up on your payments, please don’t wait to give us a call: (480) 389-5199 We can help you understand what all of your options are. Call us today.

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