Friday, June 06, 2008

How Close are you to Foreclosure?

The list of homeowners going into foreclosure has topped the one million mark. This week a Georgia newspaper reported the upcoming auction of the home of former Heavyweight Boxing Champion Evander Holyfield. His 5,000-square-home — located on Evander Holyfield Highway — has 109 rooms, including 17 bathrooms, three kitchens and a bowling alley.

Holyfield reportedly defaulted on a $10 million loan to Washington Mutual Bank, which plans to auction off his home on the courthouse steps on July 1. (Did he really need 109 rooms?)

Former baseball star Jose Canseco is walking away from his 7,300-square-foot mansion in a Los Angeles suburb. He bought the six-bedroom, five-bath Encino mansion in 2005 for about $2.8 million. The house already had at least one lien placed on it, from the Internal Revenue Service.

Ed McMahon, the longtime sidekick to Johnny Carson on "The Tonight Show," defaulted on $4.8 million in mortgage loans with a unit of Countrywide Financial Corp., which filed a notice of default in March, according to ForeclosureRadar, a company that sells default data pulled from public records. The 85-year-old is reportedly $644,000 in arrears.

California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona accounted for 89 percent of the total increase in new home foreclosures.

Who's really to blame for this mess?

4 comments:

Claudia Meydrech said...

I saw Holyfield on the news today.

Who's really to blame? Well in my opinion it's easy to blame the government, but truth is, when the economy is good, people get carried away! Gotta have more, more, bigger, bigger! And the banking industry doesn't help with their enticements. It's a matter of personal responsibility.

I feel sorry for people in REAL need because of circumstances completely out of their control.

But for many others, you got yourself into the mess, now you have to get yourself out, not expect the government to solve your problems.

JMHO :-)

Claudia

Vicki M. Taylor said...

I definitely don't think the gov't should help out with a mess these people created. They're trying to live beyond their means. Celebrities need financial planners just like everyone else.

Anonymous said...

I agree, the government shouldn't be responsible for bailing the defaulters out but I do believe the government had some responsibility to regulate lenders to make sure they were on the up and up. There was obviously a breakdown somewhere.

The other thing is some people were just plain irresponsible in purchasing the types of homes they did. Did Holyfield need 109 rooms? ABSOLUTELY NOT!

Anonymous said...

For whatever reason, many Americans think they have to have a huge, new home. They don't know what it is to start small, live within their means, and work their way up. We live in a fast-service society and we aren't willing to pay as we go...everything on credit.

The APR mortgages have forced many into forecloseure. It's a sad thing.

Celebrity plays havoc on the sense of reason!

Yes, maybe the gov. needs to regulate, but it all comes down to our basic greed. We always want more.