and people who bought more house than they could afford. Don't you just love this stuff, using our tax dollars to give incentives to banks to take the loss they should have been forced to take anyway (how about an accounting change that limits the amount of time a non performing asset can be held on the books before it is written down?) and to allow idiot buyers a free pass on having bought that million dollar house that they never had a hope in hell of paying for. My guess is that once the bankers have all collected their 2009 bonus money and looted their own coffers of the fake profits of this year they will then start all the write downs in 2010 and will need another government bailout to survive. http://www.housingwire.com/2009/09/10/federal-incentives-coming-for-short-sales-deeds-in-lieu/