LAKE CITY, Ga. - More than 1,800 people showed up to help ABC's "Extreme Makeover" team demolish a family's decrepit home and replace it with a sparkling, four-bedroom mini-mansion in 2005.
Three years later, the reality TV show's most ambitious project at the time has become the latest victim of the foreclosure crisis.
Gosh. How can a family who was given a FREE HOUSE on their existing lot get foreclosed?
After the Harper family used the two-story home as collateral for a $450,000 loan, it's set to go to auction on the steps of the Clayton County Courthouse Aug. 5. The couple did not return phone calls Monday, but told WSB-TV they received the loan for a construction business that failed.
They don't say whether they started their own business with this irresponsible financing or just gave the money to someone else to lose, but either way, they're not a "victim of the foreclosure crisis", they're a victim of their own selves. They gambled and lost--they weren't robbed by the banking industry.
Anyway, if someone would like to give me a free "four-bedroom house with decorative rock walls and a three-car garage" with "a lobby that featured four fireplaces, a solarium, a music room and a plush new office" (or even two bedrooms and a basement with a sink) I promise I can hold on to it, unless I get shot on the way home from work or crunched by a FIB on the freeway.
2 comments:
THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
I read that and was like - who the hell would take out a $450,000 loan on a house they owned free and clear!?
I wouldn't.
Note to the "Extreme Makeover" guys - I'll gladly have you build a house for me and I won't lose the darned thing.
This is greed, pure and simple. I have very limited sympathy for this family.
You know, the family being stupid doesn't bother me half as much as the AP trying to pass them off as "victims of the economy/foreclosure crisis." People do stupid things. I do more stupid things than most. But "putting up your paid-for house as collateral" or not is within your locus of control and totally unrelated to the subprime loan thing.
C'mon AP, we're not as stupid as you want to believe.
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