Extreme Makeover: Foreclosure Edition

ArnoldBabar just shed a tear and he doesn't know why.

 

http://realitytv.about.com/od/extrememakeoverhome/ss/HarperMakeover.htm

Here are the pictures and a story from when the home was first built.

It sucks hard that they had to go through what they went through, but shit ABC, it's obvious they had no experience caring for a home that size. Why not be sure you keep an adviser with them for a year?

And fuck the mortgage agent who sold them that second mortgage.

 

Well, to be fair, the family doesn't have a choice.

 

I'd demand Universal Studios, dammit!

 

It is Chase, after all...

 

I can top that.

My best friend's brother-in-law and his wife received a six-figure inheritance upon the death of some relative in the wife's family. They promptly paid off their modest little home, filled it with new furniture, stereo equipment and such, and blew a bunch more money on hubby's bad habits.

They later took out a second mortgage, blew all of that money on some of the same stuff, and found themselves - shocking! - in foreclosure.

One day, the phone rings at my friend's house. It's his father-in-law, asking my buddy and his wife to go to a sheriff's sale, buy the deadbeats' house and rent it to them.

My friend, of course, said "Um, no." And a few other choice adjectives. The deadbeats never found anyone dumb enough to buy their house back for them, thank God.

My friend is no longer married to that woman, but since they had two kids, he is still alternately entertained and annoyed by his ex and former in-laws.

That was the first time I've ever heard of anyone losing a house they'd already paid off once.

Dumbasses.

 

You can lose a house you've already paid off?

I have so much to learn before I look into this market in the next 5-10 years.

 

You can when you take out a loan (read: mortgage) on it.

They used the house and property as collateral. When they don't pay, the bank gets to keep the collateral.

Now, if they didn't take the loan out, they would have to be sued and lose to lose the house.

 

If you pay it off but take out a loan and put your house up as collateral. You don't pay the loan, the bank takes your house.

 

Apparently you can, but trust me, it takes an awful lot of stupidity and bad habits to do it right. My friend is still pissed about that phone call from his father-in-law, eight years later. And he's pissed none of us told him not to marry into that clan.

He figured back then his ex was the overachiever in a family of douchebags. But apple, tree and all that, you know?

 

It's really hard to feel bad for someone so stupid they lost a $450,000 home and $100,000 cash that they were handed to them. I'm pretty sure I'd be smart enough to do the right thing with all that... then again, that's why I'll never be given all that!

 

The story said they lost the 100 grand on a construction business that went bad.

Anyone if it was a business they started and ran or just invested in?