Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Consumer Law Blogs -> Caveat Emptor

Consumer Law

: Caveat Emptor

More of the Rich Are Defaulting on Mortgages

By Sam Glover

Apparently, the rich are a lot more likely to walk away from a mortgage.

Whether it is their residence, a second home or a house bought as an investment, the rich have stopped paying the mortgage at a rate that greatly exceeds the rest of the population.

It’s a pretty big difference. About 14% of people with mortgages over $1 million are seriously delinquent, while only about 8% of people with mortgages under $1 million are. Real estate firm CoreLogic, which came up with the numbers, thinks the rich simply dump bad homes like any other bad investment.

Apparently, the rest of us are suckers, dutifully paying down our under-water houses. New York Times writer David Streitfeld suggests that “the rich do not seem to have concerns about the civic good uppermost in their mind.”

(I think Streitfeld meant to write “the banks’ good.” The civic good seems to have already contributed all the bailout money it is going to.)

Related posts:

• Strategic Mortgage Defaults on the Rise
  Strategic default—walking away from your home and mortgage—is getting more...


• New York Times: Walking Away From Your Mortgage, Not So Bad After All
  New York Times: Walking Away From Your Mortgage, Not So...


• Chase sees the light, wants to rework 400,000 subprime mortgages
  Chase announced a plan Friday to rework up to $70...

Full post as published by Caveat Emptor on July 09, 2010 (boomark / email).