Lehigh Acres, Fla - It's your money and now it's being used in a new fight on the foreclosure front.

You've heard of cash for clunkers, and now most lenders are giving cash for your house keys!

There comes a point when the question is no longer whether an owner can keep their house but what's the easiest way to walk away from it. The Federal Housing Administration and many banks now offer cash for keys in an effort to avoid a long eviction process and to keep the home in good shape.

A woman and her two kids rented a Lehigh Acres home only to learn that it's in foreclosure. On Friday, she agreed to move out and hand her keys over the Realtor. For her trouble, she walks away with cash.

"They need the money to move out; otherwise, you really are kicking people out onto the streets without these funds," Realtor Marc Joseph says.

Lenders send Realtors like Joseph to inspect the homes and make the deal. All decisions are case-by-case, but Cash for Keys doles out anywhere from $500 to $5,000.

"Maybe it is costing taxpayers a little bit of money, but on the flip side of that, to keep them in their homes in a non-performing asset -- that would cost the taxpayer more at the end than it would now," Joseph says.

That's because oftentimes it costs to mow the lawn or rehab the home.

"When I come back to give you the cash, that place has to be in broom-swept condition. You can't take any of the appliances, you can't strip the a/c and the copper -- only take your personal belongings," Joseph explains.

Because if the home is left like many foreclosures, it won't rent or sell. Many are stripped of appliances, floor boards, ceiling fans and faucets. Lenders say you can't even get a loan on a house like that because banks consider them "risky."

Realtors say cash for keys is an incentive to keep the house clean, intact and ready to sell again.

"It does help the people get back on their feet, because you have to remember that they're in the foreclosure process because of lack of money," Joseph says.

Realtors also say cash for keys helps maintain property values in neighborhoods, because it gets foreclosed back on the market faster.