How can one even buy a house at all?

[Dean Julie]

I see/hear people "snubbing their noses" at homeowners that are defaulting on their payments because they just don't want to pay for something that doesn't have the value of what they are required to pay for. Usually basing it on - You bought the house of your own free will! You knew what you were getting into! etc. etc. Granted. The questions thus arises, Ok, so what is one suppose to do?

Take a $300,000 house. Yes, I know, at this point in time, this is a mansion. I'll cover that point in a moment. 99.99% of the time, a home buyer has to get a mortgage. A mortgage, being amortized, equates to front-end loaded interest loan. If you know someone that will offer a home loan that isn't amortized, let me know 'cause I got an army of buyers looking for that option! When I bought my first home, I calculated the difference between principal and interest one month, and, during that particular month, I was paying 24.56%. The month prior, it was 24.58% interest. I know. Over the course of the life of the loan, it averages out to about 6%. Also, consider the interest only loans. Mathematically, those are infinite interest during the first months of the loans. I don't believe I need to go that deep into mortgages with us here; we all should know that it is very common for the total interest paid for an entire mortgage can easily be 160%+ of the principal by the time its all said and done.
Going back to my opening statement, many people "snub" homeowners saying they shouldn't get into a home, and effectively a mortgage, that they can't handle.

Well.

What is one supposed to do?

Save up! How? Rent! Many will say. Rent and save up to buy a home. Ok. Fine. Let's rent. Let's save up $1000/month by renting. Yes, $1000 per month. How many people do you know that can save $1000 each month? Even renters? Yes, we all know some super rich person, or someone so conservative that you don't even have an interest interacting with them because they have no life at all. But, the bulk of U.S. homeowners can't. The bulk of U.S. homeowners are the ones walking away from mortgages they don't want to pay for, and that's my major point of this post.
Going back to that $300,000 house. Let's say that someone rents and saves $1000 per month. To save up that cash for that $300,000 house by saving $1000 a month, it takes 300 months, or 25 years to save up the cash. Here's where I was getting with the $300,000 house example. Real-estate usually moves in cycles of years, sometimes decades. That $150,000 house today will cost $300,000 in 25 years.
Hey! "That's 5 years less of payments one would have to make to a mortgage", you might say. True. However, look at the whole picture. That person, or typically a couple - its typically couples that buy homes - had to live in a small, probably junky, most likely just barely maintaned apartment for 25 years. Possibly in a less than desirable area, especially for a young family. If you know any typical U.S. couple that lives for the first 25 years of their marriage without having a family, please raise your hand. If you know any typical couple that has enjoyably lived in an apartment for 25 years, raise your hand. Finally, if you'd be the one happy doing that, keep your hand up...
I suppose there is another option. Live with your parents... for 25 years... while raising your own family...
If you're a parent, and you'd let your kids stay in your house, for 25 years, while they grow up and start their own family, so that they can save to buy a house without having to deal with a mortgage, raise your hand. If you have parents that would let you do this, raise your hand.

The point I'm getting at is, the reality of the matter for the majority is, in order to get a house, you get a mortgage. A mortgage that is not in the homeowner's favor. A mortgage is a device that lenders use for their gain at the expense and/or loss of the homeowner. Therefore, going back to the original statement of defaulters being looked down upon: who holds the greater "evil"?
The homeowners giving the lenders the finger by walking away from homes because the homeowners feel unethically taken advantage of because they had no other choice than to get an amortized loan to get a house?
Or, the lenders giving the homeowners the finger because the homeowners are unethically defaulting on the payments that they agreed to pay, regardless of the value of the collateral being paid for?

Did all that make sense?