Find the best financial services for you at: SMARTFINANCESOLUTIONS.NET - Is foreclosure really the best plan? - Wow, I just read this answer. If this is true, then this is what I should do. I'm self employed and making an income - but it's not enough to pay my mortgage and other expenses. I kept up for about 6 years, but am now falling behind. Could I foreclose and stay in my house for a few years without making payments? br br Here is what someone told me on YA! br You have the right idea but you are going about it backwards! Do what I did. Stop making payments NOW. You wont hear from the bank for like a year. Then, they will go through the whole foreclosure process. 5 days before the Trustee Sale file bankruptcy. That will buy you three more months and then they have to start all over. You can do this 4 times in one year. After that you can just let it go to foreclosure. That will take around 4 months give or take before the Trustee Sale. The unlawful detainer wont be served for like a month or two later - they will try to offer cash for keys but dont take it. Then you fight the unlawful detainer, which will buy you like 5 months. Just file all the motions and show up to the hearings. When its all said and done you will have lived there three years for free. You take the money you were going to pay the mortgage with and put it in savings. In three years you will have enough to buy a house CASH. Trust me prices are going nowhere. I started this in July of 2007 and have 90 days to leave before unlawful detainer STARTS (5 months extra still). I have about 185000 cash saved and will have 200000 by the time I leave here and move into my paid off home.