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Family 'reaping the results of years of bad business'
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Monday, June 09, 2008
DAYTON — The home foreclosure equation seems pretty clear-cut to Cheryl Owens as she sits inside the modest subsidized apartment her family moved to after losing their house to foreclosure.
"When you foreclose on these houses, it's profitable for the few and harmful for the many," said Owens, 54. "We are reaping the results of years of bad business."
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Cheryl and Harold Owens, 55, had hoped to raise their two sons in the Trotwood home at 4116 Annapolis Ave. they bought in 1995.
But the house was a dud — plagued by flooding, termites, lead paint, a bad roof and electrical problems, including a surge that wiped out their appliances. "They unloaded that house on us," Harold said. "That house sucked me dry."
The couple tried to work their way through the problems by refinancing through Mercantile Mortgage Co., with an eye toward getting extra money to replace the appliances.
The lender sent a man out with an offer to refinance the home at 9.75 percent on a 15-year loan, which required that all payments go to interest until 2015 when they'd owe the entire principal and remaining interest all at once.
Mercantile loaned the couple $60,000 in 2000, even though the home was valued at just $45,780 by the county auditor.
"That guy that came out here, he was a fast talker and knew we were at a point of need," Cheryl said. "There were no banks that were going to give us a loan. We didn't have a working refrigerator. We only had one island on the stove and our washer and dryer had been destroyed in the flood."
She said the man told her they could renegotiate the loan before the balloon payment came due. It's questionable how realistic that was since the family lives on a tiny income and already had trouble getting a loan.
Mercantile did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for CitiFinancial Mortgage, which later took over the loan and foreclosed on the property in 2004, also declined comment.
Harold is disabled and the family lives on his $1,500 monthly military disability pension. If Cheryl takes a job, the money is deducted from her husband's pension.
"Being on a fixed income like that, you can't be a homeowner for long," said Stephanie Y. Evans, home rehabilitation manager for County Corp, which helped the family with home repairs. "The dream of staying in our home until we die is not sustainable."
Indeed, that has proven to be particularly true on Annapolis Avenue, where 12 homes on the six-block street have sold at foreclosure in the last three years, the Dayton Daily News found.
It saddens the Owenses to see so many of their former neighbors lose their homes. Their house sold at sheriff's auction to the bank for $34,000 in November 2005. The same day, the bank resold the property for $35,000 to Hank Richardson of New Paris.
Richardson owns at least 72 Montgomery County properties, many of them on streets hard hit by foreclosure. Richardson, who could not be reached for comment, owns six houses on Annapolis.
The Owenses say they might have been able to keep up on their payments if they'd been able to get some help when the weatherization sealed in moisture from flooding and caused mold to take hold, growing up walls and inside drawers.
"The mold, it beat us down," Cheryl said. "We just walked away."
They expect to stay in their apartment and have given up on ever owning a home again.
Harold misses his yard and garden, but that's not all.
"I liked the prestige of being a homeowner," he said. Losing that "makes it look like I can't provide for my family. I can't even hold onto a house."
How to get help
Miami Valley Fair Housing Center, (937) 223-6035
County Corp., (937) 225-6328
HomeOwnership Center of Greater Dayton, (937) 853-1600
HomeSaver!/Montgomery County Recorder, (937) 224-3999
Consumer Credit Counseling, (937) 643-2227
United Ways HelpLink Information and Referral,
(937) 225-3000 or 2-1-1
»Get more resources online at DaytonDailyNews.com/foreclosures
