I don't think the lenders are counting on anything. They are watching and hoping, and in the meantime are floundering around trying to figure out what to do. And they know that every minute that goes by while they figure stuff out costs them (and other lenders) a lot of money.

We need to band together as Realtors, mortgage lenders, brokers, bankers, etc to persuade the lenders that we all got into this situation together and that we need to all work together to handle the situation. This might mean a recognition that investors, for example, are the only hope for many of these neighborhoods with boarded up, beat up houses. When lenders limit the number of properties an investor can finance they are substantially reducing the buyer pool.

We need to get away from the tendency to blame everyone else and ultimately the borrowers when things go bad. A lot of money was made off of these loans. And now every entity involved should be included in resolving problems. I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on this and on the indexing of mortgage amounts to current property values.