[Exile]

It's probably no surprise that some people whose homes are being foreclosed trash the property inside and out just for spite. I recently read that some lenders actually pay defaulting borrowers not to vandalize their soon-to-be former homes.

On one hand, I suppose this is a form of preventative maintenance. Yet it's as though the lenders are caving into prospective extortion. Shouldn't they be charging malicious customers for damaging the premises instead of rewarding them for refraining from what they shouldn't be doing in the first place?

Yet, many lenders are guilty of not keeping up their repossessed vacant properties anyway, which devalues the rest of the area. If they rent them out, the only qualification for tenants is that they are breathing. I know this as DW and I lived in a neighborhood that went to hell because of foreclosures plus subsequent property neglect and low standards for renter qualifications by the mortgage holders.

What are we to make of all this? How much of the American real estate meltdown a character deficit on the part of both the borrowers and the lenders?