Why do so many houses end up abandoned?

[DetroitPlanner]

Packman has explained one of the federal policies.

At the State and Local level the property that is abandoned reverts to the local County as a way to help re-coup loss of income taxes. This of course does not help as most properties that are abandoned have very little value left.

Most people here have very little incentive to keep a home if they are underwater in it. At best they will need to wait several years before they could apply for another mortgage, but many of these homes are owned by slumlords or speculators anyways who could care less or paid cash.