A house is only an asset if you have equity in it. Otherwise it's dead weight. I have seen so many people lose so much more than they had to because they just couldn't come to grips with that and let go of that dead weight before it weighed them down into an even deeper hole. They weren't the proudest days of my life, but the future has looked a whole lot brighter since I unloaded my dead weight of a house, got my bankruptcy discharge and made a fresh start. There is nothing noble about literally killing yourself to try and honor a contract. Your creditors sure as heck won't do the same for you