The government provides incentives to help some of these groups because they might not otherwise be taken care of.

Selling the note is another way out of the deal for the bank, what they will accept may be close to the same as in a short sale, but consider any government incentive too, since to my knowledge there is no government program to assist banks in selling notes.Now, if you're buying the note as a means to avoid foreclosure, with consent of the borrower and the note will be modified for some deal, your purchase price for the note will probably be close to the payoff, but again, what is the alternative for the bank?

And if your cash renting this,it is illegal to collect government payments here, they go to the tenant.

That is a very good point to make - if more people would turn off the TV and get out of the couch potato position there would not be so many hands stuck out for "free" government assistance!

Once again the loan mod program just further expands opportunities for investors to help their fellow americans in ways the government cannot!

As we now know, Fannie and Freddie are now controlled completely by the Federal Government.

They have the proverbial "License to steal" with the blessings of the government!

On the other hand, since commercial properties are valued based on their income potential and risks, a strong government lease should make it quite a bit easier to obtain financing to acquire it.

Pressure from the federal government to accept more short sales and now banks will need to accept even lower prices to compensate for the additional costs which will create less short sales.

What is to keep us from doing this here and eliminating this big government mess altogether?