3 ms·

> I don't have any failed startups, but I have missed plenty of bills, including going more than a year without paying a mortgage before short selling the house

• dragonwriter 3y ago
  > Doesn't your house get repossessed if you do this, and you end up with nothing? Foreclosure is a long and expensive process and can result in very bad deals for the lender. Particularly during and in a fairly long shadow after the Great Recession, lenders were very reluctant to pull the trigger on that if they believed they could get a better resolution, and for most of the time I wasn't paying I was in the process of trying to get the bank to approve the short sale (had a potential buyer lined up.) Also, had located and, during the time in question, moved into a rental with an independent landlord and no management company who was more-than-typically flexible in assessing credit, so wasn't dependent on having the house. (Because of the same changed market conditions that left the first home loan underwater, the rental of a larger home in a better neighborhood was also less than the mortgage on the underwater one.) Yes, though, foreclosure was a risk, but in a no-recourse state with an underwater loan being left “with nothing” is better from a narrow financial perspective (potentially worse for other reasons without alternate housing arranged, given how credit can effect that) than having the house and mortgage,