[gravymark]

I'll let you know how I moved on the decision to foreclose or not. If you think of it from a business decision standpoint you'll see what I did.

What does a bank, corporation or any buyer for a retail market do when they get into an asset that does not move? They cut their losses. I myself am way upside down on my house. I am in the military and I know I will be moving in a few years. So, I could still struggle to make the payments on a house for the next 3-4 years paying down a mortgage on a house that will never see a positive return on it in at least 10-15 years, or I could ruin my credit.

Credit to me is an american thing anyways. Do you NEED credit? Sure you need it to some degree. I won't get into the credit thing because money management comes into play here and cash is king. Many many top investors have terrible credit, and they live ok.

Or....I could walk now, and start to repair it now, or walk later anyways, and have to rebuild it anyways. The new mortgage plan that just passed doesn't do squat for me, or most people because it still is simply up to the banks to agree to take a loss. Principal reduction is the key here, not tacking on another 10 years to my crappy 30 year mortgage payment, or taking my 6% loan to a 5.16% loan saving me 80 bucks a month. Principal reduction to 90% LTV and i'd talk. Current value of my house is estimated at $68k now from a peak of $271k 3 years ago. I owe $230k still. Do the math and see if the market bottomed out, and averaged a return of 5% a year, see if i'd break even in 3-4 years when the military makes me leave. For the record I don't want to be a landlord anyways.

Business decision, cut my losses, rebuild now. When an actual business does it, they write down assets and take the hit on their spread sheets. My spread sheet is my credit report. It'll go back up. You can buy a house with a foreclosure in 4 years anyways.

That was my thinking on how I came up with my decision.