Cite as: 511 U. S. 531 (1994)
Souter, J., dissenting
other transfers) has a single meaning in the one provision in which it figures: a court should discern the "value" of the property transferred and determine whether the price paid was, under the circumstances, "less than reasonabl[e]." There is thus no reason to rebuke the Courts of Appeals for having failed to "come to grips," ante, at 538, with the implications of the fact that foreclosure sales cannot be expected to yield fair market value. The statute has done so for them. As courts considering nonforeclosure transfers often acknowledge, the qualification "reasonably equivalent" itself embodies both an awareness that the assets of insolvent debtors are commonly transferred under conditions that will yield less than their optimal value and a judgment that avoidance in bankruptcy (unsettling as it does the expectations of parties who may have dealt with the debtor in good faith) should only occur when it is clear that the bankruptcy estate will be substantially augmented. See, e. g., In re Southmark Corp., 138 B. R. 820, 829-830 (Bkrtcy. Ct. ND Tex. 1992) (court must compare "the value of what went out with the value of what came in," but the equivalence need not be "dollar for dollar") (citation omitted); In re Countdown of Conn., Inc., 115 B. R. 18, 21 (Bkrtcy. Ct. Conn. 1990) ("[S]ome disparity between the value of the collateral and the value of debt does not necessarily lead to a finding of lack of reasonably equivalent value").11
11 Indeed, it is not clear from its opinion that the Court has "come to grips," ante, at 538, with the reality that "involuntary" transfers occur outside the real property setting, that legally voluntary transfers can be involuntary in fact, and that, where insolvent debtors on the threshold of bankruptcy are concerned, transfers for full, "fair market" price are more likely the exception than the rule. On the Court's reading, for example, nothing would prevent a debtor who deeded property to a mortgagee "in lieu of foreclosure" prior to bankruptcy from having the transaction set aside, under the "ordinar[y]," ante, at 545, substantive standard.
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