This is not my opinion or statements but those of an attorney friend who has 5 national banks as clients, spoken to me over drinks well into the night (yes, he was somewhat inebriated):
"Some people have been living in a home that they've failed to make a single mortgage payment on for nearly two years."
"Banks do not want to take back any homes where the house is worth less than the mortgage, and this is especially true where the person living in the home has been taking good care of it and paying the utility, and maybe, tax bills. If the bank took it back, they'd have to ramp up costs of maintenance, they'd get hit with non-homestead taxes and other huge carrying costs."
"If banks did foreclose on all homes they could at present, it would only add to inventory levels, put downward pressure on comps, and dramatically increase their carrying/maintenance costs. It would be financially irrational for them to do this."
"The TARP and other government funds are the only thing that have kept banks from having to give away homes in many cases. The taxpayer is essentially taking the loan loss the bank would otherwise have to absorb from mortgage defaults."
"As many as 40% of foreclosed homes suffer from issues that either make the home uninhabitable or nearly so, such as mold or other environmental issues, water leaks, etc., and this is a direct result of the incompetency of banks in not reviewing, let alone maintaining, the millions of foreclosed homes now on their books."
"The real crisis in real estate is set to occur in 2010-2011, as masses of people finally move out of homes they either haven't been making mortgage payments on, or decide to quit making mortgage payments on, as the number of people who more on their mortgage than what the house is worth grows by a phenomenal rate."
"Never, ever, ever listed to real estate brokers or agents when it comes to bank owned real estate. 99% of them are the most incompetent sources of information you could possibly find. The few who aren't incompetent are unavailable to the general public, and you'll never hear from them publicly or privately."