Time to Walk Away – YWA Featured on CNN Money
You Walk Away was featured in an article on CNN Money, published today. The article discusses the “ruthless” practice of walking away from your mortgage when your home value is shrinking. Both Jon Maddux, CEO of YouWalkAway.com and Charles Gallagher, a St. Petersburg, FL real estate attorney see an increase of homeowners practicing strategic default and walking away from their homes.
The demographic of people walking away from their homes is not what many would suspect. While it is generally assumed they are “deadbeats” who don’t pay their bills on time the article claims that most are “good credit risks with high FICO scores.” A good example is IT manager Jeff Horton from Orlando, FL. He stopped paying his mortgage when the value of his two properties were underwater. It was much cheaper for him to rent a property than keep paying the mortgage on homes whose value had shrunk so much.
Mark Fleming, chief economist from CoreLogic explains, “Strategic default can be a financially sophisticated thing to do…and it makes sense that more financially savvy people do it.”
