Watson Coleman: “during our travels back home to housing townhall forums during the course of this last year, we are all meeting more and…”

“during our travels back home to housing townhall forums during the course of this last year, we are all meeting more and more folks who are in very desperate straits, trying to keep their home. Minnesota ranks No. 2 in the number of subprime mortgages in for closure. Minnesota--who would have thought? That is the reality. It is across the country. I was in a forum at St. Cloud, in the central part of my State. I met a nurse named Terri Ross, a woman who had two jobs, bought a house which was in need of repair. She had a pretty good mortgage, low interest rate, and wanted actually to quit one job to go back to school. She wanted to improve herself, improve her life, add to her education. She met with the mortgage broker. He said: Have I got a deal for you. We can get you a mortgage and it will be at a low rate. Don't worry about the fact--I am not sure she even knew it was going to pop up in a few years. Don't worry about it because property values are rising and there will be more equity in your house. She put the money in the house, did the mortgage. When all was said and done, she found herself in the situation where the value of the house was less than the value of the additions. She had lost one job. She now had one job, her income was in half. She is in big trouble. Here is a woman who worked all her life, put aside some money for retirement. What she did is she tapped into that and then she paid a penalty on it, trying to save her home.”