Foreclosure, Mortgage Default | featured news

Inma Rodriguez lost her job, and now that she's defaulted on her mortgage, she's about to lose her home. But the nightmare doesn't end there: Once creditors kick her out, she'll still need to pay back the money she borrowed to buy her house....

The number of homes entering the first stage of foreclosure fell in the fourth quarter compared with the previous quarter, MDA DataQuick says -- a sign that banks are working with delinquent borrowers.

Fewer Californians entered foreclosure during the last three months of the year as bailed-out banks appeared to step up their work with delinquent borrowers, according to data released this morning, although the number of homes taken back by banks rose slightly.

Last month a study from the credit reporting agency Experian and consulting outfit Oliver Wyman estimated that close to a fifth of troubled mortgages involved borrowers who were "strategically" defaulting--walking away from mortgages they could pay but decided not to because they owed more than their houses were worth. Self-assigned guardians of financial ethics see the willingness of borrowers to abandon their mortgage debts as a sign of the "erosion of social and moral standards." The aim of these critics is to shame debtors into sticking with their mortgages.