Posted on 05/06/2008 8:15:58 AM PDT by 668 - Neighbor of the Beast
An army of volunteers built a magnificent mansion in six days for an impoverished family on the outskirts of Camden...
*snip*
This morning the Associated Press and Courier Post reported the slate-blue 5-bedroom home was up for sale.
Asking price: $499,900...
*snip*
A big house is expensive to keep up.
Marrero, who has suffered numerous heart attacks, lives on a small pension. He has had to shut off power to parts of the house to pay the bills, the friend said.
(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...
The mind reels.
This was foreseeable.
I’ve always thought that the premise of this program is wrong headed.
I know, it makes everyone who takes part in building these superb for poor or unfortunate people feel good about themselves.
But that does not erase the value of the house, nor its upkeep, taxes,etc.
Kind of like a supercharged version of Habitat for Humanity.
I have no interest in any sort of muck-raking expose, but I am interested in how this is all carried out.
Surprised it hasn’t happened more often.
(Or maybe it has.)
I don’t remember Earl and Randy mentioning an Extreme Makeover house in their town!
Sorry, couldn’t resist with town named Camdon.
It has happened (a lot). They should build the families smaller (without so much fluff) and more affordable houses if they want them to be able to keep them.
Is there any copper pipe or wire left in the house? How about the appliances? Any furniture left? Was there a Ford truck or car that provided with the house?
Well, there's the problem right there! The inconsiderate volunteers should have made the house 100% solar. The beasts!
My girlfriend and I watched one episode and I said the same thing. If the beneficiaries of this beautiful mansion (the one we watched), couldn't afford an 1100 sq ft house for their family of six, how in the hell can they afford the taxes, heating & cooling, water & electricity, upkeep, etc., of a house four times tyhe size?
You could kinda see this happening to some of the families...
You can’t say anything bad about Ty though, his heart is always in the right place and he’s using his celebrity to help people, just some times the help creates a whole new issue.
That’s because the house is really a temple to celebrate the compassionate donors’ generosity. It’s not a home for a poor guy, it it was, they’d have built a more modest structure.
i've seen this show 2-3 times... there was one show where the family not only received the extreme home makeover, but they were given three brand new Ford vehicles... a truck for the father, an SUV for the mother and a Mustang for the oldest daughter... how much was that going to cost the family? it seemed like too much...
Sounds like part of the televised service should be breaking into the county assessor’s office late at night to do an “extreme makeover” on the property tax records. ;)
I read somewhere that they fix the gift tax issue by technically leasing the house from the family. Apparently this gets the families out of paying gift taxes on the receipt of the new house because they are making improvements under a lease.
Of course, that doesn’t cover insurance, property tax etc.
When this came up on this site earlier about Homes for Habitat and this show I said most of these houses end up in foreclosure etc because the people can’t keep up with payments-repairs-utilities etc. They have not had the responsibility of all that many being on welfare etc so in the end if you are “given” something it is not the same as earning it-then you will take care of it. But to give someone a house and they are given the responsibility of upkeep forget it. Remember the people on Oprah getting free cars and then bitching they had to pay the taxes on it?! Give me a break!
and the home is always so out of place in the neighborhood... i think they need to move the family to a new neighborhood where the house fits, or build a very nice, more modest home in the current neighborhood... but people would not be interested in watching such a show...
Actually, if he managed to sell the house for $500,000, he could buy something smaller and use the balance to help pay his fuel bill and other costs.
Of course the IRS and the state of NJ would want some major taxes, no doubt, but as my elders would have said when I was a boy, a free mansion is better than a hole in the head, even if he can’t afford to keep it.
Well, the house is near Camden NJ so...I'd guess the answer is no!
Our first house was a little (830 s.f.) passive solar contemporary that cost basically nothing to heat and very little to cool. We started having babies and had to find larger quarters - we moved to a conventional 4 bedroom 3000 s.f. that costs a fortune in utilities. Our last one is a junior in high school now, and we can't wait to sell this old barrack and built another tiny passive solar - although it may be Southern vernacular architecture instead of contemporary.
The show would do better to take its cue from something like The Not So Big House which is the seminal work on houses that make efficient use of space and resources. It's just good sense. Build what works for you.
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