Maybe I should call my mortgage company

Why? Check this out.

I could call them and tell them that if they don't knock a bunch off my principle then I'll just quit paying. This area isn't hurting as bad as many parts of the country but there are a lot of For Sale signs around and a lot of them have been up for quite a while.

I'll call this strategy "post-contractual renegotiation" or some such legalese sounding nonsense. It works for the government, right? If it's good enough for them then it ought to be good enough for me.

To steal a line from Dilbert, "I'm working smarter, not harder."