[quote=briansd1]bearishgurl, if the heirs used their inherited houses as piggy banks, then they are indebted and they’ll lose the houses to foreclosure soon enough.
Just hang in tight and eventually the houses, will pass on to new owners.
If the banks loaned money to people without incomes to support the mortgages, then they deserve the losses that are coming to them.[/quote]
Briansd, I think you’re counting way too much on people to be irresponsible to “lose your home to foreclosure”.
In a case when someone “inherits” a home, the major financial decision usually occurs at the time of the inheritance.
For most of the cases, the house is sold immediately either because the person never finished paying it off, or because the asset wasn’t adequately protected from estate taxes/or just poor estate planning, so the beneficiary ends up getting hit with huge estate taxes…
Even if the home is free and clear/with no estate taxes,
if the beneficiary really needs to cash at that point when they get the home, they would most likely sell the home right there and then. Very seldomly does someone take the home because they think theuy are getting a killer deal on property taxes, pay say an estate tax on it, and then turn it around and ATM the home to death.
