''Strategic foreclosure's spreading like a virus: Why people are ditching their mortgages''

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"Three out of 10 foreclosures in 2010 were of the strategic variety, an increase from 22% in 2009. TheMortgage Bankers Association believes strategic defaults are spreading like a virus. In a study entitled “Strategic Default in the Context of a Social Network: An Epidemiological Approach,” conducted by Michael J. Seiler of Old Dominion University, Andrew J. Collins of the Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center and Nina H. Fefferman of Rutgers University and sponsored by MBA’s Research Institute for Housing America (RIHA) the authors found “One default does little to negatively impact the price of surrounding homes. However, as more and more mortgages in the neighborhood go into default, the negative impact is felt at an increasing rate. Much the same way as a disease spreads throughout a population, so, too, do decisions to ‘strategically’ default.”