True Gotham

The Washington Post today reveals that one of the beneficiaries of ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition has successfully squandered the equity in their free home which is now scheduled to hit the auction block:

Symbolic to our era like a sledgehammer to drywall, the biggest house that ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" ever made over -- a sprawling, four-bedroom starter castle, a three-car garage mahal with a turret and all -- has gone into foreclosure, in the 'burbs south of Atlanta.

In that particular episode of the hyper-benevolent reality show, which first aired in February 2005, it took 1,800 volunteers a week to demolish the house with the overflowing septic tank that belonged to Milton and Patricia Harper of Lake City, Ga., and then entirely rebuild a new, larger house, while the Harpers and their three children went away to Disneyland. When they returned, they had the biggest house on Ahyoka Drive, with all the appliances and furnishings, plus enough money to pay taxes on it for decades, plus a fund to send their children to college.

The house will be auctioned off, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, next Tuesday on the steps of the Clayton County Courthouse. 

 So how could a home that the Harpers were given be facing foreclosure?  You guessed it...Equity!

The Harpers had used their home as collateral on a $450,000 loan from JPMorgan Chase and fell in arrears, the newspaper reported. He ran a home security business; she mommed at home. Happy to be on television back then, they declined to be interviewed last week, when a news crew showed up from local station WSB, wanting to know wha'ppen.

A high profile story due to the affiliation with ABC's television show but a problem in many housing markets across the country where people expected home values to climb forever.  Now who is going to buy this house that was constructed in 7 days???

It looks like JPMorgan Chase will own the house, unless the bank was wise enough to sell the $450,000 home equity loan. I have to believe there will be more sad tales from this show. Putting needy families in oversized homes, with similarly-sized heating, cooling and tax bills, does not seem to be the smartest idea.

This is truly a sad

and people wonder what a N is.

this is why we have a mortgage crisis
hoodrat homeowners: Hi. So, we'd like to refinance our home.

loan officer: Okay. How much do you owe on the home?

hoodrat homeowners: Oh, actually, extreme makeover paid off our mortgage for us since we couldn't afford the payments on our house when it was only worth $100,000.

loan officer: Okey doke, how does $450,000 equity line sound?

think bigger picture here and this credit crisis. HELOC's are being scaled down, as lenders hoard cash. Rates are surging, defaults are rising and losses on HELOCS are actual losses; unlike what banks can do to shift other toxic mortgage backed securities into LEVEL 3 or other off balance sheet conduits.

The HELOC wave is coming. Along with commercial wave, credit card wave, option arm wave, and auto loan wave. This is just one example of why we are in this mess. Mortgage Equity Withdrawal (MEW) allowed people to spend way beyond their means on paper profits of their homes value. Now that value goes down, the debt is still there.

WOW!!! I don't see what race has to do with this AT ALL! Just showing your ignorance IMHO.

As Noah suggests, this crisis is non-discriminatory. A lot of people have gotten themselves deep in debt and attacking this family because of race is absolutely ridiculous.

I think the home makeover show is great. It is a shame people do not appreciate some thing like that. They get a silver spoon and they turn it to dirt. They do not care about how hard it is for the people who could use a home and who would appreciate one. It makes people like me upset who work to the bone to keep our homes and can not fix them up ourselves, and see someone not turly appreciate something handed to them like a beautifulo home and all they have to do is think smart before they make stupid moves and lose it.

Though, Putting poor families in oversized homes, with similarly-sized heating, cooling and tax bills, dis a dumb idea, you are setting up the already dumb people to fail... why does someone need a castle when they can barely afford their septic filled shack? Makes ZERO sense to me.

This story drives me mad. These people are whining about being foreclosed on, and it was their own doing. According to their own words on Dr. Phil, there was not just one loan, but 3 taken out against the equity of the home. All on bad business choices.

He had a good security business and dropped that to repeatedly try out flipping houses with his son. I guess in this case 3rd time wasn't the charm.