In the UK the bank can put the property through normal private sales, using agents. In Spain the bank have kept real estate for decades following the last marke

In the UK the bank can put the property through normal private sales, using agents. In Spain the bank have kept real estate for decades following the last market crash rather than selling it at discound price. So that's a YMMV per country. Don't forget that you hardly repay any capital at all in the first years of mortgage which is in favour of the lender. Similarly in a lot of countries like Spain, UK, France, ... if you LTV is too low, the bank charge you for a specific insurance that covers loss of value of the property. The common wisdom was that indeed the bank would rather have people paying their debt, but I'm not so sure it is still necessary the case. One sibling comment to yours provide a different point of view, talking about how bank takes money of transation and more transaction is more money. Following the 2008 crisis that showed that the backend debt component of the mortgage is actually instrumentalised and resold and the element I mention here, I wouldn't be surprised if, for some banks at least, repossession is not part of their revenue stream.