by Osman Parvez
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There were 35 responses to the Walk Away survey. Here are the results (with a few comments from yours truly):

I’m glad to see that over 70% said “no,” they wouldn’t walk away. Not surprising, but I imagine if I had specified a few assumptions… say only a year of ownership and a large drop in value, the results would be quite different. People who have owned property for a short period understandably have little tolerance for large falls in value. Luckily we’re not seeing anything like that in Boulder, but some former bubble markets are living that very scenario.

Now, I *am* surprised by this result. About a quarter of the survey respondents personally know someone who walked away. That’s much higher than I would have predicted. It makes me wonder about the occupations of the respondents. I ,know quite a few real estate agents and lenders visit the blog. That’s one possible explanation.

This one was fairly expected. Typically people don’t know or the number is very low. A few are in areas where foreclosures are more rampant.

Historically, The House Einstein blog (and our primary real estate site) draw about 25% of traffic from out of state. Much of that traffic is coming from California but large cities on the east coast also provide a sizable amount of traffic. This result was inline with my expectations.

Well, this was my first experiment with a survey on the blog. What do you think?

Overall, I think the results were interesting and certainly more interactive than my usual material. If any of you readers have a comment, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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