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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

In mortgage market, ‘walkaway’ homeowners may be urban myth

Bankers and housing market analysts are warning of a chilling new trend in the mortgage world: Homeowners voluntarily defaulting on their loans even though they can actually afford to make the payments. It’s known colloquially as “walking away,” or more jocularly as “jingle mail,” from the sound your house keys supposedly make when you mail them back to your bank. It’s a way of saying that Americans are beginning to apply a cold financial calculation to home ownership: When a home’s value has fallen below what is owed on its mortgage, they feel it makes no sense to keep up the payments. For the full story visit http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-walkaway11-2008may11,0,1641820.story

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