There are many people out there who have a lot of house on their hands and not much cash, and thus we find ourselves debating bailouts, not in terms of yes/no, but this much/that much - the only fight going on amongst the politician types is how much money and who it will go to.
I have to wonder though how many of these "distressed mortgages" are actually people who still cling to the idea that they're going to flip their property and make a pile of cash. Could it be that they're ignoring a tried and true way of paying for a property that one doesn't live in? I'm talking about rent.
Sure, this would complicate things and turn would-be speculators into landlords, which is probably the last thing they want to become. I can sympathize - I used to be a landlord (I did it intentionally though, so perhaps it was more tolerable for me than it would be for these folks). Being a landlord can be relatively hands-off, however - all you have to do is hire a Real Property Management company to handle it all for you. Typically, a property manager will charge you a percentage of the rents collected - generally between 8% and 10%, last I heard - in exchange for handling all aspects of the rental process for you: advertising, showing, signing tenants, collecting rents, even processing and executing evictions. You even get to deduct what you pay a property management company on your taxes.
This may be falling on deaf ears (blind eyes?) amongst those who think that enough in Federal handouts is all they need to get a quick pop in their property's value. Maybe that will happen in some cases, but the reality is probably the opposite. Becoming a landlord with a property manager to handle the details for you is probably the only way you'll make your mortgage payment and save your personal balance sheet. It is also honest, as opposed to sitting around waiting to collect welfare.
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