60 Minutes: Walking Away From Your Mortgage (WATCH)

Video - How to Walk Away From Your Mortgage - 60 Minutes - May 9, 2010

This was rebroadcast recently on CBS, so we decided to republish it for those who missed it the first time around.

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Read the transcript at CBS...

More than a million Americans walked away from homes "underwater" or worth less than their mortgages even though they could afford the payments.  Morley Safer reports on this trend, called strategic default, that threatens the economic recovery.

Related:

A bank that only lends to walk-aways?

JPMorgan Warns Investors About Walk Aways

60 minutes on the BP oil spill

Comments

[DailyBail]

Blowout: The Deepwater Horizon Disaster

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/16/60minutes/main6490197.shtml

[Dave]

I don't have a problem with it. I am a software developer and lost most everything in Seattle during the dot com crash. For more than a year there was no work to be found. An estimated 70,000 programmers were out of work in the Seattle/Portland areas. Mean while at that same time the DOL is reporting on their H1b site that companies are filling the limits with foreign workers. And at the same time companies all around america were outsourcing and offshoring their operations as fast as they could.

This continues today, and as stupid as we are, we just sit and watch.

So americans like me are forced to walk away from our debts, and why not! Should programmers be the only ones paying for american greed. Should we be the only ones subsidizing made in china and mexico.

Hell no! If you want cheap foreign workers and you want cheap goods at walmart made by cheap foreign workers and you're ok with insourcing, outsourcing, offshoring, etc. Then watch as more of us are forced to walk away. Keep watching until you are having to walk away. It's not far off!

[DailyBail]

JPMorgan Chase Warns Investors About Underwater Homeowners Walking Away

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/11/jpmorgan-chase-warns-inve_n_571103.html

[DailyBail]

A bank that only lends to walk-aways?

http://www.snl.com/InteractiveX/article.aspx?CDID=A-11157937-13098&source=patrick.net

[Texas Dar]

With an almost Perfect credit score ( 789-792-800 ) and I was traped into this mess, you dam right I would walk away. It took the goverment 25 years to pull off this scam on the American People.

Each year the price would go up 7 to 10 % on property, becouse the goverment said so. So everyone said buy land. Best investment you could buy today.

Build on it you "Dream Home"...............................go deep in debt becouse you'll neaver lose your money. You can Bank on It. Year after year the value keeps going up.

Just when your convinced it now or ever to spend yr life savings on your dream home...................................."Bam"...................."WTF" Just happened. Down..........Down....................Down gos your value and 2 years later your home is worth 70% less than you paid for it.

Why, becouse thats how the minty goverment, and the Bankers Planed It....Thats Why...! So here you sit. Now What......."Walk a Way" thats what. Why not..? The goverment took 25 years to set this all up with intent of this happening to the people.

The Goverment Doith Unto the People................................The People Doith unto the Goverment. Why the Hell Not... They Scamed you, Shaft Them.

It was thier great plan in the first place. Neaver feel guilty for something you were scamed into by intent. BUT, Keep Very Good Records on everything so you have PROOF you dident do anything wrong, and are a very good borrower, and can and will pay the lone off to an Honest Lender.

The histroy books are being Rerit as we suffer threw this crap. But wait, the goverment has kicked the can down the road, so its only going to get "Worse'er" ( My Word ) so be prepared to fight for anything you manage to get.

[RecoverylessRecovery]

"Hell no! If you want cheap foreign workers and you want cheap goods at walmart made by cheap foreign workers and you're ok with insourcing, outsourcing, offshoring, etc. Then watch as more of us are forced to walk away. Keep watching until you are having to walk away. It's not far off! "

It's ONE thing to 'walk away' because you honestly can't handle the debt burden you yourself STUPIDLY volunteered to sign-up for and from which you probably milked out copious amounts of cash in order to afford the toys and lifestyle that was actually BEYOND your REAL means vs the FUCKING DOUCHEBAGS who can STILL AFFORD to make the payments but feel they're now 'underwater' and 'over burdened' by loans that they STUPIDLY volunteered to sign-up for and from which they probably milked out copious amounts of cash in order to buy toys and live a lifestyle that was actually BEYOND their real means

[Richard De Rose]

This is bad the we raised our children to be so callus.and irresponsible. But its also a bigger shame that those in government that betrayed us should not be held criminally accountable. Two wrongs don't make a right. But America is too stupid and incompetent as well as brainwashed to figure it all out. So she will surely fail.

[LIL E]

Walk away. It's just money. It's all a game. Poor Lil' ol bank.
GAME OVER.
Big Deal.

Can we focus on what's more important...like the dollar becoming worthless? Food is becoming too expensive to buy...and we ALL gotta eat...

[S. Gompers]

Actually, only the rich have the right to eat, just like the right to be bailed out, the right to lie to the courts, or the right to create all kinds of legally justifiable frauds and schemes for the lobbyists to buy their way out of trouble with their influence over Washington.

The only way out is for the citizens to start their own lobbying group and buy more influence than the corporations, like that will happen...

[Futures and Commodities Trading]

Every chance the media and gov't gets their whine about people losing "their" houses. Morality is a 2 way street baby. if it's YOUR house then the mortgage is YOUR responsibility. This heads I win tales I bail BS doesn't work