Surprise! “I’m just going to walk away from my mortgage.”

According to a recent Los Angeles Times article, strategic mortgage loan defaults Los Angeles Times, have become a perplexing problem for mortgage lenders as well as the national credit bureaus — homeowners just walking away from their homes even though they have not missed a payment.

It’s a problem they don’t seem to understand. It appears from research more homeowners are making strategic decisions to simply walk away from the mortgages – especially in states like California where homeowners are more likely to be upside down (more than the home is worth).

Although a perplexing problem to mortgage companies and credit bureaus (who get paid to predict who will repay a loan or not — thats what credit score sare intended to accomplish). With some homeowners, even those who have never missed a payment (usually a good indicator that they will pay their mortgage and other debt obligations) are seemingly acting irrationally by just walking away (and from my experience not looking back) from their homes.

The Times article makes perfect sense to me.

As a bankruptcy attorney, I’m on the front lines of people making difficult financial and life decisions in a unprecedented time. The economic down cycle has hit California and the Central Valley especially hard.

Across the board, I talk with people having to choose how they will handle job loss, pay and overtime reductions, medical and family disasters and other causes of financial distresses. Almost to a person each person struggles with making a decision to file bankrutpcy or letting their home go into foreclosure, so I understand those homeowners who make a “strategic” decision to walk away from their home — even if the all knowing, all powerful credit bureaus don’t.