2. guiriduro said...

People on big salaries tend to be more intelligent. Seeing that the world is not going to offer easy credit again in the next 5 years, and possibly for another generation, they are watching their big salaries go on paying mortgages on expensive properties that are rapidly depreciating. They could live far better by defaulting, renting, and saving their earnings to spend as prices of goods should get cheaper during a recession. If they bought in the last few years, their equity may already have evaporated. Many will have no-recourse mortgages, so they just put the keys in the post. Their credit rating goes down - big deal - so is everyone else's, and there's no credit worth having and no house price stability to be worth buying, nor will there be for at least 3 years. 3 years of living well as big earners, or 3 years paying a mortgage worth a good deal more than your house. It's quite simple, really. Easy way to shuffle off your losses on to the idiots that loaned it to you. Bye, bye banks.