I happen to know quite a few folks that aren’t paying their mortgages right now. These aren’t deadbeats or dirtbags, either. These are, for the most part, solid middle class professionals. They’ve decided that its better to just not pay and see how long they’ve got before the bank moves in and takes over.

In some instances, we’re taking 18 months and counting. I know a coach in Temecula who recently moved to another house because he was tired of waiting for the bank to foreclose. My understanding is that he waited for over a year and banked something along the lines of $50K due to not paying. When I asked him why he didn’t wait for the NOT, he said his wife was tired of the stress of wondering when the bank would evict them and felt that moving now was better than waiting.

What is telling is the attitude most people now have and that is largely that the banks and Wall Street have gotten away with what amounts to outright theft, so who cares if they do? Its an “all bets are off” sort of mentality.