Once again, the hype comes first...

...the facts show up after the guests have gone home.

(H/t to CJR) The LA Times pokes holes in the current "Homeowners are defaulting! Homeowners are defaulting!" myth:

But there's a major problem with all this talk about the phenomenon of solvent homeowners "walking away": There doesn't appear to be any hard evidence that it's actually happening.

When pressed for the number of borrowers who could afford their mortgage payments, major banks and lender groups could not produce numbers figures.

eh?

So what's all this crap we've been reading? You mean to tell me that major media affiliates are just going along with the flow and not checking their data?

Bankers... do you have an explanation for this? Uh, that'd be no.

Nor could the Mortgage Bankers Assn., the leading trade group for housing lenders. Spokesman John Mechem said he believed that walkaways by homeowners who could afford their payments were "becoming more prevalent." But he said that was based on "anecdotes we're hearing from our members and what we're reading in the newspapers."

Cripes, are there any reporters in our media outlets? or all you just a bunch of spoon fed parrots?