Nolo.com is a good source of info for bankruptcy/foreclosure, and they say for an FHA mortgage:"To qualify for an FHA mortgage loan, you must wait at least three years after the foreclosure. The three-year clock starts ticking from the time that the foreclosure case has ended, usually from the date that your prior home was sold in the foreclosure proceeding. If the foreclosure also involved an FHA loan, the three-year waiting period starts from the date that FHA paid the prior lender on its claim."
For a Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae mortgage it's at least 7 years, a Conventional or Private mortgage it can 2-8 years. If you're a veteran a VA loan is the most lenient, two years.
And while since your mortgage was discharged in BK the lender can't report the foreclosure on you credit report a foreclosure is still a public record, recorded and made public by your county Recorder. And when you apply for a mortgage the lender wants to know your current situation - are you renting or paying a mortgage, so it would have to come out.
So if you walked away you're almost certainly looking at having to rent for several years before you could buy another house and get a mortgage. And since you got your mortgage 17 years ago I imagine your mortgage payment is less than rent for a comparable place to live. Normally you think of something like a new roof adding value to your home, but in your case you need to consider the cost of a new roof to the hassle & expense of moving & renting for several years. But one thing I should also point out is that once you stop making mortgage payments it is normally several months before the lender forecloses, some have posted here that it took a year and even longer before they were foreclosed on. And you are living rent free for that time between when you stop making payments and they foreclose and you have to move out. Not a situation I would want to live under wondering when the knock on the door comes, but only fair to point that out.
