The other factor is short sales.  Many owners are selling their homes at a discount before the actual foreclosure takes place. The bank will postpone the sheriff sale in lieu of the owner selling prior to the re-scheuled date.

Due to these factors, it just seems as though the foreclosure rates are dropping, however they are still at absurd numbers.

The Bill would place a wage garnishment on the income of each “walk-away” that would be life-long.

In any event, a permanent black mark should appear on each and every credit report of every person who walks-away from his or her mortgage contract.

It is my understandiing of contract law that every party to a legal contract must agree to the termination of a contract in much the same way that renters/leaseholders cannot just “walk-away” from a rental or lease agreement without the consent of all parties which would include the landlord or his or her agent.

Those who state they are making a “business decision”  to “walk-away” my question form them would be:

“May I see your business license number, please?”

~Misstrial

What’s the real reason that banks aren’t foreclosing? - Housingstorm.com

“Banks make more money by NOT foreclosing on homes. Banks are dragging out the foreclosure process for their own selfish reasons. Until the day they foreclose, the amount of money owed to them is an asset…sure, it’s an asset that isn’t paying interest payments…but it is still an asset. The day they foreclose, a $400,000 asset could become a $150,000 asset and a $250,000 loss.”

Strategic Defaults a Growing Problem – And Look at the Numbers in California – These figures indicate that while lenders may think they can HAMP or “kick the can” of overwhelming debt burder to homeowners down the road, the homeowners have other ideas…

http://www.latimes.com/classified/realestate/news/la-fi-harney20-2009sep20,0,2560658.story

It starts with this observation:

Homeowners who ‘strategically default’ on loans a growing problem

A
study shows that people who abruptly and intentionally abandon their
mortgages often have high credit scores, in stark contrast with most
financially distressed borrowers.

And goes on to these findings:

Among researchers’ findings are these eye-openers:

* The number of strategic defaults is far beyond most industry
estimates — 588,000 nationwide during 2008, more than double the total
in 2007. They represented 18% of all serious delinquencies that
extended for more than 60 days in last year’s fourth quarter.

* Strategic defaulters often go straight from perfect payment
histories to no mortgage payments at all. This is in stark contrast
with most financially distressed borrowers, who try to keep paying on
their mortgage even after they’ve fallen behind on other accounts.

* Strategic defaults are heavily concentrated in negative-equity
markets where home values zoomed during the boom and have cratered
since 2006. In California last year, the number of strategic defaults
was 68 times higher than it was in 2005. In Florida it was 46 times
higher. In most other parts of the country, defaults were about nine
times higher in 2008 than in 2005.

* Two-thirds of strategic defaulters have only one mortgage — the one
they’re walking away from on their primary homes. Individuals who have
mortgages on multiple houses also have a higher likelihood of strategic
default, but researchers believe that many of these walkaways are from
investment properties or second homes.

* Homeowners with large mortgage balances generally are more
likely to pull the plug than those with lower balances. Similarly,
people with credit ratings in the two highest categories measured by
VantageScore — a joint scoring venture created by Experian and the two
other national credit bureaus, Equifax and TransUnion — are far more
likely to default strategically than people in lower score categories.

* People who default strategically and lose their houses appear to
understand the consequences of what they’re doing. Piyush Tantia, an
Oliver Wyman partner and a principal researcher on the study, said
strategic defaulters “are clearly sophisticated,” based on the patterns
of selective payments observable in their credit files. For example,
they tend not to default on home equity lines of credit until after
they bail out on their main mortgages, sometimes to draw down more cash
on the equity line.

Just these findings alone may have a massive impact on the foreclosure markets in the near term and longer term – perhaps even more impact than HAMP or anything else…

We need to spin the focus on getting people who can AFFORD a home into a home as their residence.