The only thing I'm not fully on board with is staying in the house rent free for 12 months while waiting for the foreclosure process to complete. I can't quite

The only thing I'm not fully on board with is staying in the house rent free for 12 months while waiting for the foreclosure process to complete. I can't quite explain why, but taking advantage of the slowness of the legal system seems different and less respectable than exercising the default option in the mortgage contract. I sympathize with your concerns, but one justification for staying rent free in the house is that it is a hedge against malicious bank activity. For example, in some cities, banks have initiated foreclosure proceedings against people who then dutifully move out, but the bank never takes possession of the property and never notifies the previous owners. As a result, ownership rebounds back to them, and they end up on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars of back taxes and fines. Make no mistake, if you abandon your home for a few years, you will eventually have to pay a lot of money. Now, if your bank was one of the banks that engaged in this behavior, you might be justified sitting in the home rent free: after all, you have no way of knowing if the bank is about to force you to incur costs that accrue by vacating the house. At least if you're sitting in the house, you can keep vagrants from moving in, perform basic maintenance like leak protection and do other things that will minimize the penalty you'll take if the bank ends up refusing to take ownership after initiating foreclosure.