Those poor lenders. It's just not easy to cut a break these days after riding high and doing as they please thanks to Republicans who did not think regulation was a very good idea. Now it's the lenders who are crying about "mortgage fraud" as buyers ditch their old house and buy newer, cheaper houses. Isn't a regulation-free market exactly what they wanted a few years ago? What's that old saying about paybacks?
"I can find the same exact house as what I live in right now for half the price," says Ms. Augustine, 44 years old, who runs a child-care service out of her home. She says she soon will be unable to afford her monthly payments, which will jump to $4,000 from $3,300 in August, and she doesn't want to continue to own a home that is now worth $200,000 less than what she paid for it two years ago.
In markets hit hardest by falling home prices and rising foreclosures, lenders and brokers are discovering a new phenomenon: the "buy and bail," in which borrowers with good credit buy a new home -- often at a much lower price -- then bail out of the "upside down" mortgage on their first home.
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