... of the lending process in recent years.

Uneducated home buyers have been snookered by ridiculous mortgages; lenders have played the roles of the monkeys who see no evil, hear no evil and say no evil when examining potential borrowers. Unfortunately, it's been a turd painted gold that was hailed as the golden Amercian Dream egg; we can smell the stench now.

I voted no to the poll question, but did so with a caveat. If the borrower returns their keys to the real estate in question, as long as the he agrees to make up the difference between the house's current market worth and the remaining, uncovered equity, then he's honored the agreement with the lender.

I have one friend who's a real estate agent. We spoke on the phone today, and she was sharing with me how sad it is to meet people who've been bamboozled and have to tell them the straight up truth that, realistically, they're not going to be able to sell their home to clear the remaining balance on their loan(s). She's had to do that much more as of late, and it breaks her heart. Most of the time it's been families who were too trusting, and overwhelmed at the excitement of purchasing a home they thought they'd never be able to get into.

I don't have much sympathy for the lenders out their and the mortgage brokers who push these disreputable loans. I've witnessed another friend get snookered with a bad loan. She was flat out lied to regarding the terms when she asked questions, and because she trusted the answers she received without having a legal representative look at the paper work for her before signing, she's facing payments she never anticipated. She and I both thought the mortgage broker was an honest business person; the broker prided herself on being the person you could trust and making sure you were in a lending product you could afford. I am still flabbergasted that the terms my friend thought she had, and the terms she does have, it turns out, are so different. "Buyer Beware," is something none of us should forget.

On the flip side, there's buyers out there that willingly played shell tricks with their abilities to pay on a loan, just so they could get into the house they wanted. They've fibbed about their income, hid unsecured debt, bought homes with no down payment using ARMs that balloon way beyond their means. Then they've taken out home equity loans on what little equity was available from the house too soon after the purchase, willfully putting themselves into negative equity peril.