Anyone who has watched ABC’s “Extreme Makeover” cannot help but be touched by this story. Five years ago, one Dr. Brian Wofford and his family got a new house courtesy ABC’s popular show “Extreme Makeover.” In the news today, the family is on the brink of losing their new home in Encinitas if another miracle does not happen. Wofford, father to 8 kids, has had trouble for the last couple of years just trying to hang on to their home. Wofford lost his wife in 2000, and has since been raising his 8 children on his own.
Basically, the same mortgage crisis which has crippled millions of Americans in these tough economic times has gotten to the Woffords too. From what we can learn, Wofford’s mortgage on the house was an adjustable rate which shot sky high when the economy turned sour. Wofford has tried for two years to modify the terms, but when the paper holder IndyMac went under, Wofford could not get terms from the new lien holder OneWest Bank.
The living room of ABC's gift to the Woffords
The good news is, now that 10News in San Diego carried the story (along with 100′s of others on the Web), OneWestBank representatives have said the Wofford’s modified loan papers would be in Dr. Wofford’s hands next week.Wofford told 10News he is hopeful, but he has not seen anything as of yet. Wofford, humble as ever, said he will be happy no matter what as long as he has his family. What a shame this is. A family in such need gets a helping hand from a great show, and the banking flop dumps them in the street potentially. If OneWestBank’s terms are not good enough, the Wofford’s house will go on the auction block later this month.
Ty Pennington and Extreme Makeovers do some fantastic work for some really deserving people. We sincerely hope 10News, OneWestBank, and maybe even Ty himself can do something to help these great folks. You can check out the images from the Wofford episode here. The contact method for reaching Extreme Makeovers Home Edition is on this page. Who knows, maybe a “more extreme makeover” is possible? Bad form and PR for OneWestBank if they do not come through on this one. Ty, they need you again brother.
About Phil Butler
I live around the corner from Dr. Wofford and have used his chiropractic services against my better judgement and I should have listened to my better judgement. He doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who has a lot of integrity. Having said that, I find myself tuning out to the woes of people who live beyond their means and who don’t understand or question their choices. Our neighborhood’s home values spiked to unrealistic highs and many people took advantage of HELOCs so they could live “Large”. Here’s yet another example. Sorry for the harsh response but my husband and I are having to sit it out and wait to build our retirement home because of neighbors who greed got the better of them.
I am sympathetic to anyone having financial problems, especially coupled with the personal ones of this family. However, I have yet to see an explanation of this mortgage problem reported. The show does not take out a mortgage on the new house and stick the homeowners with it; no one would be able to participate if that were the case. So is this a mortgage from the original house? Or a home equity loan that Wofford took out after he got the new house?
Someone who purports to know wrote, “Someone has said that that Wofford had only a $330k mortgage at the time of the makeover, which he could easily have handled. He then proceeded to take multiple cash-out mortgages, pulling out an additional FOUR HUNDRED AND SEVENTY FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS from the house and making it an adjustable mortgage to boot. The only reason he is having problems now is because he greedily and stupidly increased his mortgage from $330k to a $805k adjustable. How disgraceful of him to take this huge gift from EHM and piss it away. These are the facts.”
It would, whatever the case, be nice if someone would report all the facts of this story.
Wondering if this family is having the same problems with OneWestBank like others have been having. They just got in trouble by a judge because this bank was one of the banks that took the bail out money and yet they are not willing to work with people who have hit hard times like they did. They are even going so far as to harassing people. The couple that won against them in court got their mortgage and interest completely wiped out (over $500,000) and another lady they are trying to foreclose on is a 89 year old disabled lady whom they have also been told to leave alone through courts yet they are not listening to that order either. So more than likely this will be another victim of this bank. I do understand that they are a business and that is the type of business they do but considering they were bailed out by tax payers money they should be more understanding to the tax payers that have mortgages with them.
Wow Becky. I did not have time to investigate this bank’s dealings (I suspected), but thanks for bringing this to light. This whole “bail out” thing feels like a band of cat burgulars came and stole all our TV’s and then came back for the VCR’s too. Now they seem to want to get the victims to pay for their court costs once they get caught too? This is intolerable. If this were just business, the American taxpayers would have told GM, AIG, all of Wall Street, and 100 more sectors to just suffer.
I am a big proponent of sink or swim where these businesses are concerned. We never should have bailed any of them out. Give the billions to someone who can manage money and business and let the crooks die.
Always,
Phil
Part of the problem is many of these people not only have underlining conditions they also do not have an understanding of money and debt like most Americans. I have offered to assist ABC in avoiding this problem by having their recipients go through my financial training program that I developed for people that have gone through foreclosure.