HLS hit the nail on the head; this is precisely why the crash is going to snowball. It would be financial suicide *not* to toss your keys for these people.

Heck, an even better course of action is to just stop paying your mortgage and wait for the bank to evict you. Threaten that you will declare bankruptcy and sue the bank for predatory lending if they don’t pay you to move out.

The banks are on the ropes and are going to have so many repos that I would not be surprised if you could live rent/mortgage free for a year or more until they kick you out.