I have been saying this for awhile now, “If new bank is built for 200 million and it is now worth 100 million it becomes a bad asset and they will walk away and call it a good business decision, and yes they actually have the money to pay for it.” This has been going on for years and now that home owners are getting beat up by there upside down mortgage or loss of employment and income they still struggle to hang on. Sometimes starting over just makes sense emotionally and financially, if big business can strategically do this than why can’t you? Free consultation if keeping your home is no longer an option- Josh Groesbeck 208-353-7131 or josh@homeswithjosh.com
www.homeswithjosh.com and www.idshortsale.com
More and more commercial real-estate companies are doing what many indebted homeowners would like to do: Walk away from mortgages on properties that are now worth a lot less than they paid for them.
Today’s Wall Street Journal highlights three major developers - Macerich,Vornado Realty Trust and Simon Property Group - that have recently decided to default on mortgages.
When companies do this, no one bats an eye–it’s just “smart business.”
When ordinary homeowners think about doing it, meanwhile, the mortgage industry and government begin moaning that a mortgage is more than a business contract. It’s a social contract, in which homeowners have a “moral obligation” to pay.
That’s bunk. An individual mortgage is no different than a corporate mortgage. If corporations are allowed to walk away from mortgage obligations without feeling shame and guilt, then individuals should be able to do so, too.
The contract homeowners sign when they take out a mortgage spells out exactly what happens if the homeowner stops making payments on the loan. The lender has the right to foreclose on the house, taking the homeowner’s downpayment with it. In addition, the borrower’s credit rating will usually get destroyed, and, in some states, the lender can come after his or her other assets to recoup the capital the lender has lost.
Those are big penalties. They provide a major incentive for the borrower to continue making his or payments. And that’s why the lender, a corporation, put them in the contract.
Importantly, the lender voluntarily entered into the contract–and it did so because it thought doing so was a smart business decision. That it actually turned out to be a lousy business decision is not the homeowner’s fault. It’s the lender’s fault. And the borrower, who is already feeling plenty of pain his or herself, should not have to bear the burden of guilt and shame on top of everything else.
Look at the chart to the left. You can see that all of the foreclosure trends are still moving up.