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Life goes on after foreclosure
Mike and Kimberly Teel in their motorhome.
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Kai Ryssdal: There was some better-than-usual news about the housing market today. New home sales rose last month. The number of houses hanging around on the market fell. Those are both good things. But they're not going to do much to change the damage that the real-estate market did on the way down. Millions of people have lost their homes to foreclosure. We've heard a lot of those stories. What we don't hear so much about is what happens after foreclosure. To the people who lost the house. And to the house they lost. We sent Krissy Clark from American Radio Works to Las Vegas to find out.
KRISSY CLARK: You've probably never been to Broxburn street in Las Vegas. But you've seen places like it. When I first visited, six months ago, Broxburn was just another half-empty street in what was becoming a suburban ghost town, a ghost burb I guess you'd call it. Empty stucco houses, brown lawns, a row of signs that said, "For sale -- bank owned." And...
Rob COLE: Smell it?
CLARK: Oh yeah...
A terrible stink.
COLE: It's just a very distinctive, like algae, you know?
Algae, rotting leaves, a drowned bird. The smell was coming from three filthy swimming pools in the backyards of three foreclosed homes, right next to each other. I was with a guy named Rob Cole. His job is to clean pools that have been abandoned.
COLE: There's more things living in that pool than in that house. A lot more.
But there are traces of the people who used to live here. A bird house nailed to a tree, the ruins of a rock-lined fish pond.
And, looking through a window into the living room of 3613 Broxburn...
CLARK: Wow, look at what it says there.
COLE: Oh yeah, that's really sad.
There's a message spray painted in neat black letters on one of the walls.
COLE: After 15 years here, thanks.
So, what happened to the family who spray painted this message, once they moved out? And what happened to the house they left behind?
Kimberly TEEL: Hi, hi how are you?
I found the answer to the first question a few miles away from suburban Broxburn street, but also a world away at the Oasis RV Park. In lot 652, a woman with bleach blond hair is sitting in a lawn chair, holding a Coca-Cola glass full of pink wine.
TEEL: I'm a little nervous. I've had two glasses of wine today, but I have iced tea for you.
That's Kimberly Teel. She and her husband Mike are both in their 50s. They used to own the house at 3613 Broxburn. Kim spray painted the message on the wall right before they left. She gets emotional just talking about it.
TEEL: I wanted the new owners to know. Look, this is my home, take care of it.
Now, Kim and Mike have a new home, a 25-foot motor home.
KIM: This is where we live.
Mike TEEL: Now.
KIM: Now. This used to be our party rig, OK.
The tour of the party rig doesn't take long. It's just one room, plus a toilet in a closet and a nook in the back for the bed.
Kim: I gutted it all out, put in all new wall paper in, and...
Mike: It's home.
Kim: It's home.
They've barely finished showing me their new home, before they turn to memories of their old one. The only one they ever owned. Where they lived with their two daughters, and their aging parents.
HOME VIDEO: Happy thanksgiving. Happy thanksgiving.
Mike puts on this home movie from Thanksgiving a few years ago.
HOME VIDEO: And this is our turkey this year, looks kind of good.
Kim can't take her eyes off the screen where her smiling relatives flicker by.
HOME VIDEO: You've got a beautiful home here.
Kim: I used to have a nice house, huh? Look at it.
Mike: Yeah, we did it all ourselves, just her and I. We redid all the cupboards, put all new appliances in, redid the floor, everything in there is all brand new. For somebody else.
Kim: For somebody else.
The Teels lost their home in a way that's become painfully familiar. They refinanced, for the second time, at the peak of the real-estate boom to an adjustable-rate mortgage. But they didn't read the fine print about how much the interest rate would rise after a few years. Once it did rise?
Kim: I actually read the fine paper work, and we got screwed.
They couldn't afford it. Kim was at home full-time taking care of their sick parents -- one had Alzheimer's, another cancer. And as hard as they tried to stretch Mike's income as a slot machine repairman, it just wasn't enough to cover the mortgage. Finally, last November, the bank gave them three days to get out.
So Mike and Kim moved into their motor home. Not long before, both their elderly parents had passed away, and their older daughter had already moved out of the house. But their younger daughter had just graduated from high school, and was still living at home. Now, she's couch surfing with friends.
KIM: Do you know what that does to my heart? I've worked my whole frickin' life to make sure my kids have everything, and now the whole family is...
Mike: They're all over the place.
Kim: They're everywhere, because they haven't got a centering point.
Mike: It's really hard to see, I'm sure, to see your parents go from a house, into a motor home, in a park.
Kim: Tell her how they treated you at work. Tell her that. "Trailer trash."
Mike: Oh yeah, they call me trailer trash. I'm sure they don't mean any harm in it, it's just a joke to them, but it's not a joke to me.
And it's hard to forget the home they used to have. The Teels haven't gone back to their home on Broxburn street. But I have to see what life-after-foreclosure has been like for the house.
CLARK: I'm standing in front of the house. Looks like somebody has moved in.
There were moving boxes stacked on the front porch. Three dogs barked at me through the door.
A woman in her 50s named Keri Michelle Reeves bought the house in April. With cash. For $120,000. That's 10,000 less than it cost when the Teels bought it 15 years ago. Reeves didn't want to talk on tape about how she'd benefited from someone else's misfortune. But she did let me come inside and see the house.
She's gutted the place. Knocked down walls. Repainted everything, including the spray-painted message that said, "After 15 years here, thanks."
I asked her how she felt about that message that the Teels had left. And she said, "I feel sad for them. But they made bad decisions. Their loss is my gain."
KIM: OK, this is our local bathroom. Now you think I'm a weirdo, come on in here.
Kim Teel is taking me past rows of motor homes to the public bathroom at the Oasis RV Park. This has become her refuge.
KIM: If you turn this on steam, and you sit in here and put your music on. OK, now you're going to do yourself all in salt and olive oil, and then you're going to dye your hair, cuz you can't do it in the rig.
When she's not giving herself spa treatments in the public bathroom, Kim is busy looking for a job. It's hard in this economy, but not as urgent. Now that the Teels don't have a mortgage. The income that they do have goes farther, and they can spend it on things they couldn't when they owned the house on Broxburn street.
Mike: Fixing her teeth up.
Kim: Yeah, I got a lot of money in my teeth, OK.
Mike: So there were a lot of things we let lag behind, like going to the doctor for the skin cancer I have.
Kim: But you have to have co-payments. But we wouldn't even think about that. But we are taking care of ourselves a little bit better now.
Kim's gotten into photography recently, and she shows me a picture she took on her cell phone, from the door of their motorhome.
Kim: Look at this.
One of those perfect sunsets, with the light streaming through the clouds.
Kim: I mean if you have to go to bed every single night and look at this. It can't be that bad, can it?
In Las Vegas, I'm Krissy Clark for Marketplace.
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Until you walk in another man's shoes you cannot understand their sacrifices or their plight. These comments infuriate me. People judging people from one article. These people are 50 years old, paid a bank for 15 years for their mortgage (which is a glorified name for "rent") and no longer have that home. You are not living in their mobile home or living their lives. You are not using a shared bathroom every day, rain or shine, winter or summer. If this woman had not taken care of their two sick family members, your taxes would have paid for the care of their two dear lives. Where were you when those two parents needed their diapers changed and needed medicine? Where were you when the cost of that medicine needed to be paid, children needed to be fed, one hard-earned income had to stretch to all of their needs -- and their mortgage? Where did the money go? You have GOT to be kidding me?! Are you really so dense? Where will you be when your parents need help? Who will have the money to take care of them now that THEIR retirement has been stolen from their investments -- or you! We have been railroaded -- all of us, stop blaming and questioning peoples motives and start helping your own neighbor, whoever it is, however you can, without repayment, just giving of yourself and/or your time -- showing love and compassion to your your fellow man who is just trying to make it -- just like you. I implore you all to pull together to support each others painful situations instead of pointing fingers and saying "ha, ha, I am better than you" Shame to everyone who has written on this article above. You are not better, you are worse! Be better! Practice compassion, love and understanding. Be there to give someone who is taking care of the sick or aged a break for a few hours of your own time -- or anything else you can do -- Care about people for goodness sake!
It is very sad that these people have used the equity in their houses to (sometimes) buy frivolous things, but I am sure some of that money also went for other things, such as medical expenses.
The whole situation of Mike and Kim Teel is reminiscent of a larger issue. Bob Dylan once said that "some people rob you with a fountain pen", and it still rings true 46 years later. Before everyone goes haughty on me, thinks about it.
People in a bad situation such as the Teels (as well as some of the elderly), are frightened beyond rationality, and jump at what looks like a great deal to "fix the financial problem" or perhaps some other people, (who may be playing with only 51 cards), just *miss* the issue of risk, or maybe some people do not understand how to cut through the glitz of positivism.
The problem is that emotion (High, or Low), clouds thinking, and that makes people vulnerable to being "swayed" by over zealous loan salesmen who are less than honest.
The situation is really driven by "the law of the jungle", and it is a fact of reality that if the other guy is "smarter" or "bigger" than you, you will lose.
This really is not fair, but it is reality.
Banks and Finance/Mortgage companies never have been role models for honesty (ever try to decipher the 4000 minuscule words on the back of your card statement?). The last administration allowed them to run rampant. The bankers were just as bad as the borrowers. Once the financial institutions got a "smiling nod" of silent approval from the "financial (non)watchdog agencies" they started encouraging and evangelizing on the virtues of burning up the equity in one's house. The lenders did not care about the high risk they were peddling, they knew they would get most of the borrower's homes, so they were covered. However, they were too shortsighted to realize that their seized collateral would lose value when the "foreclosure glut" which they snickered about came to fruition.
Likewise, the borrowers ignored the circumstances and just saw $green$, and imagined tropical islands in the sun.
In the end, the grifters scammed the victims, and the victims further victimized themselves by pushing even further. A sad state of affairs.
In the past, most people were careful with what they took, and knew that if something looked to good to be true, it *probably was*. Likewise, business was a bit more honest in the past, and in less of a panic to appease the greedy investors.
Even with Obama's "lets get together and fix it" attitude, the place is still thick with flies sucking up bailout funds for bonuses.
What has happened to the American attitude of "help the underdog"?
No, that does not mean free rides for illegal aliens (or even Humans), but it does mean "help your neighbor if you can *even if it is an inconvenience*".
As Nietzsche *should* have said, "God has taken the American with him".
Anyone remember Kitty Genovese?
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_is_dead)
ok. I am tired of reading all this nonsense. I too am facing forclosure. I however am not whining or pointing blame. I simply can no longer afford my home because a lack of work. What I would like to know is, what about all this stimulas (tax payers) money that went to these banks to help people save their homes? we may not all agree with the stimulas but we should all make shure the moneys go where they belong( not some speculator that bought 10 homes on a whim) but to the working people who have fallen on hard times. God bless you all.
I'm with the posters who say, "it's their own fault." I have no sympathy for people who didn't read their docs, then expected us taxpayers to bail them out.
And: "TEEL: I wanted the new owners to know. Look, this is my home, take care of it." REALLY? So you SPRAY PAINTED on the wall? Um, that's what gang-bangers and trash do. Spray painting a wall is not "taking care" of it. Ugh.
John H,
I'm not a judgmental person, but if I were, I might say that perhaps you should have looked more closely at the balance sheets of banks you were investing in. Perhaps you're not a victim, but simply made bad investment decisions by investing in banks that were lending money to people like the Teels. But then again, hindsight is 20/20, so let's not point fingers.
I found myself getting angry towards the end of this story. I am tired of hearing how the media portrays everyone who were foreclosed on as victims. What did they do with the refinance proceeds? I'm sure it wasn't just a lower rate they signed up for, they took money out. In addition the woman who bought the house out of foreclosure was portrayed as a vulture or bottom feeder. She wasn't the cause of the Teel's problem nor did she benefit from their troubles. She benefited from the bank's troubles. She bought the place for $10-$15K less then when the Teel's bought it 15 years ago. The bank took a total bath on that mortgage. Who takes that loss? The bank's shareholders who are people like me who save money and invest in stocks so I can try and retire when I'm 65. So who is the victim?
My 21-ft. motorhome is a beloved cottage-on-wheels and a few months ago I sold my small home and most of its contents so I could spend more time exploring back roads and meeting interesting people. I've learned how few things I really need and how to conserve water and propane and electricity. Although it doesn't get the greatest miles per gallon, I don't do many miles per day so my carbon footprint is probably less than it was in my house. Whoever said we could all have everything we want in life? We have to fit our lifestyle to our income and make some difficult choices. The previous comments here are ones I agree with. I read the fine print on a $500 expenditure, ask lots of questions, and sleep on it at least one night. Certainly an obligation of $200K and/or 30 years deserves that much. People spend more on dinner in a fine restaurant than getting an hour of expert advice. All this whining because people don't take responsibility for their own behavior. . . Enough already! Let's have some stories about people who lived under their income before the current "crisis" and therefore are doing okay. How about stories that will encourage and instruct in responsibility?
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