RISKS OF VOLUNTARY FORECLOSURES

We have been reading with dismay about people walking from their mortgages even though they have the income to make their mortgage payments; these are known as “voluntary foreclosures”. The motivation is to avoid paying for a house where they owe more than the current price of the house, forcing the bank to take the loss when the house is foreclosed upon.

According to Experian, a credit rating service, over half a million borrowers walked from mortgages that they could afford in 2008, double the number from 2007. These home owners are not unemployed or out of savings, they are just choosing to not pay their mortgages anymore because they see it as an easy way to make some quick cash with no long term downside. According to Citigroup one in five foreclosures are now voluntary, people with jobs and savings and able to pay the mortgage. They are using the fact that the banks are slow in foreclosing to get a free place to live for months and sometimes years before having to move out for non payment. Surprisingly, Experian found that people with high credit scores are 50% more likely than people with average or low credit scores to walk from an underwater mortgage believing that a foreclosure will be only a minor ding to their credit score.

It may seem as though they are right. After all, there has been no public outrage at this practice and there have been no stories of anyone being arrested for financial fraud for refusing to pay the money they owe the banks while still having the same financial conditions as when they were given the loan.

The US government has electronically created almost a trillion dollars to shore up the global banking system from the problems caused by borrowers defaulting on “sub prime” loans. The loss of income to the banks from voluntary foreclosures may have even greater implications to the global economy than the defaults of high risk borrowers. Deutsche Bank predicts that the number of homeowners underwater will grow from 14 million, or 27% of all homeowners with mortgages, in 2009 to 25 million homeowners, or 48% of all those with a mortgage, before home prices stabilize. Assuming that the practice of voluntary foreclosure continues unabated and 25 million Americans voluntarily walk from their mortgages the US tax payers will be left to cover the trillions in bank losses or let the global banking infrastructure collapse in bankruptcy.

In 1985 we bought 5 acres outside of Dallas, Texas during the oil boom and when the oil boom went bust, the property became worthless. When we needed to move from the area for a job, we were stuck with a mortgage for an amount that was huge to us at the time. We continued to pay the taxes and mortgage for the property until it was paid off. After 10 years the Dallas economy recovered enough for us to sell the property for what we originally paid for it. Though we lost the use of that money and the interest on that money for 10 years, we considered it our tuition in the school of hard knocks. It taught us a lot about the real value of real estate and that knowledge has been worth far more than the money we lost on that underwater property. We currently have a Hawaii property that is underwater by over 50% and dropping. Our mortgage, maintenance and tax payments are our current tuition payments in the new economic school of hard knocks. We make those payments because we promised in writing we would when we took on the mortgage and we think keeping our promises is very important. But we also believe that walking away from our property, as the voluntary mortgage walkers are doing, would be incredibly shortsighted.

Here are the reasons we believe the voluntary foreclosure walkers are making a big mistake:
1. RENTS WILL SKYROCKET: The majority of the mortgage walkers will have to live in rentals along with the massive number of Y gens (now bigger in size then boomers) and others not able to qualify for a house loan. The increased demand for rentals will cause a sharp increase in rents. As we experienced in the 1980’s, rental costs can greatly exceed the cost owning a house. The mortgage walker may find that they are never again able to buy a house on credit making them a renter for life and exposed to the ever increasing rental rates.

2. US DOLLAR BECOMES FORMALLY DEVALUED: The massive amount of US currency being created to keep the banks afloat is causing the dollar to lose value against other currencies like the Japanese Yen and Euro. In the last 3 years, the dollar has lost 30% of its value compared with the Yen. Many large currencies have fixed exchange rates with the dollar such as the Chinese Yuan and Saudi Arabian Riyal and there is growing international pressure for these countries to formally devalue the US dollar. This devaluation could happen without notice and easily be 30% or more causing raw materials that we compete for internationally to skyrocket in price. The building materials that we were able to buy cheaply in the past may make buying a new house in the future unaffordable.

3. PERSONAL CREDIT CONSEQUENCES: So far the only consequence of walking away from a mortgage that we have heard about is losing 100 points on one’s credit score. But what if Congress decides to collect the losses being incurred by the FDIC and bad mortgages being purchased to keep the banks afloat from widespread foreclosures? They have access to everyone’s IRS statements, bank statements, and IRA/401K arming them with the information they need to uncover who is really broke. What if stronger consequences are implemented by banks and mortgage walkers lose their right to credit of any kind. They may be relegated to paying for cars, college, and clothes the way it used to be done, through layaway plans, savings and cash.

The people with good credit and income that are walking away from their mortgages may be creating another economic backlash by requiring the federal government to put even more trillions of dollars in the banking system to cover their debt. This will further erode the value of the US dollar with other international currencies making the money saved by walking away from their mortgages seem insignificant. Owning real estate and a house where living costs are relatively fixed are the primary ways to financially survive the dropping value of the dollar.