Some owners may intentionally fall behind on mortgage

USA Today reports:

Are homeowners purposely falling behind on their mortgage payments to qualify for cheaper home loans?

Economists, lenders and other housing experts are concerned that programs to bail out troubled homeowners might have an unintended consequence: encouraging people to miss mortgage payments so they can qualify for a handful of programs that ease loan terms.

"It's a problem," says Mark Zandi, chief economist and co-founder of Moody's Economy.com. "A lot of the programs require you to be at some stage of delinquency, so homeowners say, 'What about me?' and they get delinquent in order to get help."

Great moments in socialism.