If you are a superior candidate (significant years of experience, many successful products that you were one of the couple key dev members on), interview anyway. There are relocation benefits usable to the large players with deeper pockets, one of which includes third-party companies that will buy and resell your house from you via a subsidy provided by your new company.
Im not sure what you mean exactly. Sadly I have a recourse loan because i refinanced which means the bank can come after my assets if I default. Being a well paid programmer for a decade means i have assets to take unlike many people in my situation. They aren't limited to taking just the house and ruining my credit, so I'll be gambling to some degree if I try to walk away from it.
Most of the people who are stuck are folks who either have second mortgages or refi-loans which included a recourse. In order to step away from that you'd have to file personal bankruptcy and that can be really hard.
That being said, I don't doubt for a minute that for the right candidate Google or Facebook would pay the difference on what you owed vs what you sold for if you agreed to pay them back if you left in under 3 years. They aren't stupid and the math works in their favor. ($150K is equivalent to 300 shares of 'restricted stock' @ $500/shr price (they call them GSUs) which vest over 4 years) Top engineers should be getting better than that so its worth a shot.
