As a former head of REO asset management at a large national lender, that very seldom happened. 1 out of a 100, if that. Just in my experience.
No offense, but I'm afraid your experience sounds like it consisted of looking at portfolios of assets in an office, or reading reports from third parties. As the former owner of a small mortgage company who moved into real estate, and having decades of experience in lending, selling, and managing properties, I've seen hundreds of foreclosed properties personally. My experience is at the street level...and quite different.
Yes there are properties that get trashed in anger, but there are also some who get treated lovingly because that's "home" regardless of the circumstances. Moreover we have the fact that large banks and national lenders see what they want to see. Especially when it helps justify a major league scam.
The taxpayers were told the biggest banks needed to be bailed out, because they were "too big to fail." They were given billions of taxpayer dollars, with instructions to use the money wisely and help stabilize the economy by keeping people in their homes whenever possible. Subsequently these institutions set up programs to modify home loans, and loudly publicized them. However behind the scenes a monumental set of hoops was designed, which prevented all but a lucky few from actually getting their home loan modified.
In many cases people were put into foreclosure by Department A, who made sure to never talk to Department B negotiating a loan modification that was cut off with the foreclosure. There were also foreclosure mills set up, which falsified documents by the thousands while throwing people out of their homes who were desperately trying for a modification.
In the meantime a huge percentage of the money given to banks was used to buy assets like T-Bills. Unbelievably we had the tax payers paying interest...on the very money they gave the banks free! This cash also allowed these banks the luxury of sitting on foreclosed property as the R.E. market recovered. At which time they reaped a double bonus on the resale.
So to review we had "to big to fail" institutions getting free tax payer money, which they then invested rather than rerouting it to the public as intended. Money was made on returns from interest, from investments, and from waiting out the housing market. The biggest part of the scam? Not only did they get to keep all the profit, but by making it all but impossible to get these alleged "loan modifications," they ended up keeping the majority of the capital.
We can agree to disagree on the percentage of people who take care of a home until they lose it. However throwing out numbers like 1 out of 100 (if that) is likely to sound like a very one sided presentation to the millions of people who lost their home....as their lender moved billions directly to the bottom line.
