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CBS found the real estate scheme, dubbed Project Lifeline, most newsworthy, not only assigning Nancy Cordes to lead off its newscast with the story but also following up with Sandra Hughes' Hitting Home feature on the "walk away" phenomenon. CBS' Cordes differed with ABC's Betsy Stark (embargoed link) on who is participating in Lifeline. Both agreed that it was a voluntary consortium of six major financial institutions that cover half of the nation's mortgages: Citigroup, JPMorganChase, Wells Fargo, WaMu, Countrywide Financial and Bank of America. Stark called them "servicers" who process mortgage payments; Cordes said they were the actual lenders. Cordes estimated that "more than 2m families are drowning in debt and in danger of foreclosure." Stark put the figure at 1.3m, although she did use the same "drowning" figure of speech. NBC merely mentioned Project Lifeline in passing.
CBS' Hughes chose an example of walking away that was publicized in the Los Angeles Times' real estate Weblog LALand. It concerned Karen Traynor and her two bedroom condominium, a second residence in San Ramon Cal. The apartment was purchased with a 100% loan for $505,000 when it was appraised at $520,000. Its value is now $340,000. Even though Traynor is able to keep up her payments she has decided that would be a bad financial decision. She is willing to take the hit on her credit score and forgo the chance of qualifying for another mortgage for the next five years in order to rid herself of the debt. The condo now belongs to the bank.
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