Credit Card Brains

From The Arizona Republic: More homeowners mailing keys to lenders instead of payments

Joan Shaffer is turning in the keys of the north Phoenix Tatum Ranch home she bought with her daughter in late 2005. They put nothing down on the home, took out a loan that let them pay less than they owed each month and now their loan is $200,000 more than the house is worth.

“We paid $585,000. It was the peak of the market, but no one told us,” said Shaffer, a real-estate agent from Colorado. “We would probably have to spend the next 20 years trying to get right on the mortgage. That’s crazy.”

It’s amusing that she is a real estate agent. Still the article has no hard figures:

The mortgage industry is struggling to estimate how many homes are going into foreclosure because of people who don’t want to pay, rather than because of people who can’t afford to pay.

Industry estimates and anecdotes suggest the figure is climbing …

What industry estimates?