by Calculated Risk on 5/31/2010 10:09:00 PM

From David Streitfeld at the NY Times: Owners Stop Paying Mortgages, and Stop Fretting. A few excerpts:

Foreclosure procedures have been initiated against 1.7 million of the nation’s households.
...
The average borrower in foreclosure has been delinquent for 438 days before actually being evicted, up from 251 days in January 2008, according to LPS Applied Analytics.
...
More than 650,000 households had not paid in 18 months, LPS calculated earlier this year. With 19 percent of those homes, the lender had not even begun to take action to repossess the property ...

Streitfeld provides a few examples. One lady said "The longer I’m in foreclosure, the better."

This isn't for everyone. Streitfeld quotes Kyle Lundstedt, managing director of Lender Processing Service’s analytics group:

“These people are playing a dangerous game. There are processes in many states to go after folks who have substantial assets postforeclosure.”