Jul
Extreme Makeover Foreclosure
Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that Milton and Patricia Harper are facing foreclosure.
The Harpers received a four bedroom home along with $250,000 in cash when the television show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition featured their home in 2005. I can’t feel sorry for them, it takes a special kind of person to take a once in a lifetime opportunity and pretty much flush it down the toilet.
So how’d they do it?
While I don’t know the date of the loan, the Harpers evidently used the home as collateral for a $450,000 loan to start a business. Since they have been making payments on the loan it’s pretty certain they don’t have the $250k left either. That’s $700,000 in just about three years, or roughly a $19,500 monthly burn rate. Maybe they started off small with only a $5,000/month burn rate and things progressed to a much greater rate as time went on. Didn’t a little alarm bell go off sometime in that first year with someone realizing that more money was going out than was coming in? Maybe they blew the $250k, then decided the only way to get it back would be to open a highly profitable business. The theories could be endless, and it really doesn’t matter. Water seeks it’s own level.
This doesn’t surprise me at all. I’m sure there are plenty of others that have done the same. They must have taken out a home equity loan on the home and couldn’t make the payments. All they had to do was pay the taxes and utilities and they would have been set.
Jason
August 4th, 2008 at 8:30 amStupid is all I can say….they needed some business training before jumping like that, they had it made!!!!!! DUMB!!!!
August 18th, 2008 at 11:30 amsimple: People become GREEDY.
October 6th, 2008 at 10:37 amWOW Ken.
Shame on you.
Hope you never get a free house!
October 6th, 2008 at 11:24 amGet real Ken! I doubt the color of their skin had anything to do with it!
October 6th, 2008 at 11:41 amI personally know ALOT of WHITE people that do not have BRAIN ONE when it comes to MONEY or GREAT OPPORTUNITIES. Maybe Home Makeover should also include financial counseling – prior to tearing down the current home and constructing “an above their means” home.Oh and for the record I am WHITE.
It makes me sick that these people could just waste all that money, especially the house that was built for them out the kindness of the volunteers hearts. I don’t even have my own home and couldn’t even imagine being given that gift and just pissing it away. DISGUSTING!!!
October 6th, 2008 at 1:37 pmYou people are a disgrace!!! I hope you never get a free house again!!! All the work those people put out to build you a home and YOU PUT IT UP FOR COLLATERAL!!! You didn’t put not 1 penny into it!!! So how can you put it up for $450,000!!! What I shame!! You should rot in hell!!!
October 11th, 2008 at 10:40 am[...] – Extreme Makeover Foreclosure saved by mikannim2008-11-08 – Extreme Makeover: Foreclosure Edition saved by Taila2012008-10-28 – [...]
November 8th, 2008 at 5:02 pmI think this is wrong, it was the homeowners fault. They should not have had a loan for a buisness yet when you just got a home.
April 1st, 2009 at 4:55 amI think Nick is pointing out the “key” issue here.
Where is the responsibility of the lending institutions in all of this? All of this bailout money going to banks that continue to make poor financial decisions. How you can lend money to a family that obviously doesn’t have conditions to pay it based on a speculative business venture? Yes, the people are responsible here – I’m not avoiding that – but the lending institutions as well should be held to a much higher level.
May 7th, 2009 at 7:54 am