Homeowners throughout the United States are seeing huge dips in the value of their homes. Almost no place has been able to escape this decline. Some have been able to keep making their mortgage payments and hang onto their homes. But not everyone has been so fortunate. In fact the number of homeowners dealing with foreclosure continues to rise.

If you are someone who has lived in and been making payments on your home for a number of years, you will probably have built up a substantial amount of equity. If that’s the case you will no doubt want to do whatever it takes to keep making those payments. Even though your home has decreased in value you have so much invested that you are hoping the housing market will eventually rebound.

Then there are those individuals who went out and bought houses in the past few years with almost no down payment and the promise of low interest rates for the first couple of years. Once the interest rates went up so did the mortgage payments. When that happened many of these people began losing their places to foreclosure.

But what about those who are still working and can afford to make their payments? There is a growing trend among some of these homeowners to just walk away, stop making payments and let their homes go into foreclosure.

The fact is that even though they can afford their mortgage payments they have come to a sobering conclusion. They realize that no matter how much cash they pour into paying down their mortgage, their homes are losing value faster than they can pay them down. They feel that it’s just not worth it to keep paying.

But everything is different when you are dealing with foreclosure that you choose to allow to happen. Before you let it happen, it’s important to seriously think about the long range consequences of your actions. That’s because the same rules won’t apply to you. So just what can you expect if you allow this kind of foreclosure to happen?

Government officials have warned that the “forgiveness” clause that is being applied to homeowners who are legitimately losing their homes to foreclosure will not be available to those homeowners who choose foreclosure even though they have the means to pay. The steps they are prepared to take, if any, to put a stop to this type of walk away foreclosures have not yet been decided upon.

There is no doubt that your credit rating will be negatively affected. It’s quite possible that the penalties may last longer or be more severe. Financial institutions are especially concerned because of the fact that if you’ve chosen to walk away from financial obligations once, what’s to stop you from doing it again at some future time.

If you have a notation on your credit report to this effect, you may have more difficulty getting financing for other major purchases. If you are able to get financing, it’s quite possible that you will pay much higher interest rates. You may not be able to even get a credit card for a long while.

You also have to wonder if banks and mortgage companies will be willing to finance mortgages for those people who have defaulted by choice in the past. How many years will this choice negatively affect you?

There is no definitive answer as to what exactly will happen. But before making the decision to walk away, carefully consider what dealing with foreclosure under these circumstances may mean for you, not just now but in the future.

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