Foreclosure as fashion statement

Marcie Geffner comments in a real estate column today about the crowd of "walk-away homeowners" who choose not to make mortgage payments even though they could afford to do so -- and the limited consequences for ditching your digs.

Inman's Jessica Swesey also alluded to this apparent trend in a couple of blog posts (here and here).

Perhaps foreclosure will become so fashionable that we will see a new hit reality show on celebrity foreclosures? Stranger things have aired on television.

There was a fair amount of media coverage about real estate professionals who themselves got caught up in the hype of the real estate boom and got over their heads in their personal property investments. How many agents are now facing foreclosure as their income has stagnated with the market and they are facing costly payments for one or more properties, and how many are choosing to follow in the ranks of this walk-away group?

Geffner concludes in her column, "If legions of upside-down homeowners simply decide not to make their mortgage payments, the idyllic 'American dream' may be exposed as no more than a fantasy, and at the end of the day, the bedrock notion of home ownership as good public policy may be placed in jeopardy. That's yet another potential negative outcome of the current mortgage crisis that should give pause to anyone whose livelihood depends on real estate."

Some comments on Geffner's column from Inman News readers:

"Where are all the people who take responsibility for THEIR own financial decisions. Way too many of these homeowners are taking the easy way out," says Susan Jacobs, a broker-owner for an Assist-2-Sell office in Virginia.

And Thomas Johnson of Houston, Texas, writes, "Where's the article about the walk-away builders, developers and Wall St. MBA securitization specialists? These unfortunate homeowners are making a business decision for which there are consequences that they will have to bear for years. Wall St. gets a blemish on the quarterly earnings report and a tsunami of cheap capital ..."

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