Walking away from a home: Has it come to this?

You can always count on NPR — or National Public Radio for those who don’t know — to stir up your emotions. The venerable radio station, and its Web site, did this to me again with its story on You Walk Away.

You can read the story here, on NPR’s Web site. Basically, You Walk Away is saying that it’s OK to lose your house to foreclosure. The company, for a fee, will help you through the process. The homeowners, at least according to You Walk Away, can simply leave the cares of their old mortgage behind, without looking back.

The mortgage industry calls this practice of voluntarily walking away from mortgages “ruthless default.” Some homeowners, and the folks behind You Walk Away, refer to it as good business sense.

This is a sticky issue. Some would argue that many  homeowners are facing foreclosures largely because mortgage lenders have been greedy, and have pushed borrowers into loans with artificially low initial interest rates. When those rates jump to normal levels, the homeowners can no longer afford their monthly mortgage payments.

Others, though, would argue that borrowers have only themselves to blame for their predicaments. It’s their job to research mortgage loans carefully. It’s also their job to face their financial responsibilities, including their monthly mortgage payments. Walking away, without any attempt to pay back their loans, is unethical.

Here’s where I fall: If you’re a homeowner facing foreclosure, call your mortgage lender and work out a solution. Mortgage lenders will do everything they can to keep you in your home. No one benefits when a home falls into foreclosure, especially not mortgage lenders.

Simply walking away from your foreclosure? That strikes me as a pretty sleazy way to go.