Determinants of Missed Payments and Foreclosure Initiation Among Homeowners who File for Bankruptcy

Homeowners have long sought debt relief in the federal bankruptcy courts, but they take different paths to reach that point. For some, home mortgage problems are a precipitating “last straw,” with borrowers filing bankruptcy petitions to literally stop foreclosure sales in their tracks. Other homeowners go bankrupt without ever having missed a single mortgage payment. In-between, there are homeowners who have stumbled and missed mortgage payments, but managed to cure notwithstanding their serious financial problems. Still others have failed to cure but have not yet ended up in foreclosure by the time they file for bankruptcy...