April 29, 2008 6:51PM
One in a Million Odds Becomes Reality
By Alexis Glick
This morning we had a real treat! A story about a young family in St. Clair, MO with three kids and a growing stack of unpaid bills who were rescued when they decided to participate in a giveaway with Lend America.
Lend America, a mortgage broker and mortgage counselor, offered a $250,000 “Home Free Mortgage” giveaway. Amanda, who rarely believes in these kind of contests or is comfortable giving her personal information out, decided to enter the contest because they only requested her name, address and phone number. She thought why not! Not knowing that what seemed like one in a million chance would in fact come true.
Amanda’s husband is a carpenter and his job doesn’t involve a regular paycheck. Amanda and Wesley had an 80/20 loan. They essentially had two mortgages. One on 80% of the home and one on 20%. The payment on the 80% mortgage doubled because it was an adjustable rate mortgage. They were suffocating from the mortgage payments. They couldn’t get their mortgage refinanced because they couldn’t or wouldn’t qualify given the level of debt on the home. Then one day the phone rang and their World changed.
The $250,000 prize comes in 25 installments of $10,000. The Michno’s mortgage is not that big so they’ll use the rest to pay down car loans and save for their kid’s future. Not bad! I like happy stories.
Speaking of good stories….Lend America is a great story. They got out of the subprime mortgage fiasco about a year and a half ahead of the debacle. They finance entirely with FHA loans and they’re having tremendous success. They finance $150 million of loans each month. Their business has grown 300% in the past 18 months. They’re in 36 states and they are doing some great things to help families including creating a rainy day fund. You can find out more by visiting their Web site Lendamerica.com. I was impressed!
Comment by chuck
Apr 30th, 2008 at 9:33 am
What has been interesting down here the Vicksburg and Warren County are now faced with a real delimma. Ford Subdivision, an improvished subdivision which has been suffering from high flood water from the Mississippi River. Now Mayor Laurence Leyens is now faced with a real crisis. Often in areas with a floodplain,the land is comdemned. Now this has happened one before with Hamiliton Heights sometime ago when that subidivision flooded. Now the Ford Subdivision has a racial makeup of black and white. The reality is the homes have to be bought by the us goverment at market value. Now here’s a sidebar story that one the local Jackson stations aired. Now Govenor Haley Barbour wanted to help these locals out and he said no discussion on the issue. But Mayor Leyens,in an arrogant manner, said “will discuss this.” Well I was told that Leyens that had his eyes on Ford Subdivision for inementant domain purposes. How true I don’t know.
But most of these locals who are old,young black and white, the real problem not facing the city and county is relocation. This has generated a new problem for the City Housing Authority which isn’t prepared to handle flood issues. Now a patch of land has been found and the city has formed an unnamed commission created to deal with this issue. Gov. Barbour is trying to have Warren County and several other counties be declared damage areas by President Bush. The relocation of the impoverished has now emerge as a new problem. Becouse some don’t want to leave thier homes. It’s going to be interesting to see how this is going play out.
Comment by barry
Apr 30th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
With interest rates dropping, why are adjustable rates going up?
Comment by zathner gizunder
May 5th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
You forgot to mention how lendamerica charges max fees on all their transactions and has converted FHA into a boiler room style operation. Kudos to them for continuing the American way of taking from those who can least afford it.