23109VC, even if you were to refinance and have a recourse mortgage, as I understand it, the lender can only obtain a deficiency judgment though legal foreclosure (and not trustee’s sale).

So lenders who foreclose through trustees’ sales (the normal way of foreclosing in CA) actually give up recourse, regardless of whether the loans were purchase money or not.

Of course, if there are other recourse debts, those lenders could go to court and obtain deficiency judgments. But would they want to spend good money trying to get blood out of a turnip?