Quote from Chagi:
I have to agree on this one, I'm in university right now, also working for a mortgage company. If a client gets to the point where they cannot pay their mortgage and/or cannot repay their arrears, it goes to a lawyer for lump sum payment demand, followed by foreclosure proceedings if that fails.
Up here in Canada there are two possible scenarios - either it's a high LTV ratio mortgage and any losses the lender faces are recouped from CMHC or Genworth (formerly GE Capital), or it's a lower ratio mortgage (conventional) and losses tend to be fairly unlikely. It's also worth noting that someone with 30% equity in their home is a heck of a lot less likely to walk away from their mortgage than someone with, say, 5% equity.
As for the current state of housing, I regularly see things that amaze me. I would personally rather live in modest condo that has had the mortgage paid off than a really expensive house/condo with a mortgage. There are many people out there right now pulling in 100-150K or more in equity, from selling a property in a hot market, that immediately just turn around and re-invest it into an even more expensive property with the biggest mortgage that they can possibly afford...eventually the cycle has to come crashing down...