The only fair thing to do is to foreclose upon all of the homes that qualify for foreclosure due to failure to pay upon the mortgage, bring all the resulting inventory to the market and let the housing market find a secure and stable bottom.

FORBES: Why Homeowners Can't Bank On The Mortgage Relief Plan

These days, for instance, lenders are less likely to foreclose on defaulting borrowers: in America, less than a quarter of loans 90 days late or more are in foreclosure, compared with three-quarters in the late 1990s, points out Charles Calomiris, of Columbia University.

ECONOMIST: Securitisation