National Ledger – Harper Family Extreme Makeover: Extreme Home Makeover Foreclosure, Video — It seems to me that these makeover homes should be placed into some sort of restrictive trust so the recipients cannot do this. People who get themselves in a mess to begin with may not be able to handle finances very well in the first place. None of the locals who pitched in to build the house are too pleased.
One of the homes from the ABC hit reality television show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is now in foreclosure. The home is located in Lake City, Ga. and was built for the Harper family. After getting the gift of the spectacular home the Harper family took out a loan against the house for almost a half million dollars. The home would have cost about $450,000 to build.
But everything was donated, the materials and all of the intensive labor it took to build the home. It was featured on ABC television and then the home was presented to the Harper family. Reports claim that Milton and Patricia Harper of Lake City also received 25 years worth of cash to cover the taxes on the large home. Now they have been kicked out of their house as they have defaulted on the loan.
#16 Foxnews had some guy saying Extreme Home edition was dumb for making houses for people.
I think also the bank is to blame also. Why loan them full value of the house without checking if they could pay it back?
I disagree with putting the house in trust but they should have a 5 year contract where they must hold on to the house before selling or getting a loan against it.
I’ll bet they were religious.
To those of you saying it was a waste of money: How?
1) The television network had half a million to spend; they did, probably making much more in the process through airing the show.
2) The family had a half million dollars worth of leverage sitting there, which they used, spent, and lost; and now
3) The bank has a half million dollars worth of real estate, which they’ll sell to someone at a foreclosure sale.
The only thing that makes this news is that the family essentially pissed a half million dollar gift away – bad luck for them, but much better that they do this than to have the house sit there devaluing for years and not generating some kind of cash flow.
I feel sorry for these people. Someone must not have told them that if they borrowed money, they would need to pay it back with something the banks call interest, and that if they were starting a construction business, they would need to actually work, and know about construction.
These people are clearly victims of a society stupid enough to throw money at them, and they deserve a second chance. I would be really mad if someone gave me a bunch of money and didn’t tell me there would be more where that came from. It wasn’t their fault that they were forced to give up moderation, education and motivation in favor of fornication, reproduction and inaction.
I really hope the greedy people at ABC and all of those selfish 1,800 volunteers that were par to this conspiracy do something about this. They had better come up with another $600K soon, or these victims may need to get a job or something to keep living — which would just be a shame.
This wasn’t really unexpected now, was it? A combination of average-to-poor decision making skills (you don’t get an EHM unless you’ve make a series of bad choices in life), something-for-nothing/windfall instant wealth – in the form of house equity – and a lending market where no-income-required loans were being made every day. That’s a recipe for success every time, right?
It’s always been a concern of mine that the homes EHM build are so outlandish, so quickly outgrown by children in the families.
What I’m wondering is how this particular family can live with themselves knowing how hard everyone worked to give them this home.
I’ve often wondered how families who recieve these huge homes are able to afford the huge taxes and utilities.
I sincerely hope this misuse of charity doesn’t discourage volunteers and companies from donating their time, money and efforts but I DO wish EHM would be a lot more realistic and down to earth in building some of these monstrousities.
Ty Pennington is a homo. It’s so fake when they get to the house and everyone is always home running out the door. Please. Those people are so dumb, why bother trying some business, just sit back and enjoy all the free stuff and be on easy street. I feel bad for the stupidity, but people can’t handle a lifestyle change like that, just like all the pro athletes that end up being rapists and drug addicts and broke.
Now I’ sure this show is a big joke! After seeing the home built in Quincy,PA. built in January, since then the guy has been in the paper twice (so far) once for tax evastion and now for 5 counts of animal abuse. Why don’t they do bacground checks on these so called needy people. And, instead of spending thousands of dollars on one home they could spread the joy around helping way more people that need it in a more normal life style. I feel sorry for all the people that get suckered into helping.