Another Extreme Makeover Home in Trouble

We've documented the many problems with various homes built as part of the TV show Extreme Makeover Home Edition (including this comment from an EMHE worker). Well, looks like another one is in trouble. The highlights:

Sadie Holmes thought it was a blessing when ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition built her a 7,000-square-foot home and office for her charity in 2006.

Now she's struggling to keep her nonprofit afloat, and she may end up losing the $400,000 home if she can't pay a $29,000 county lien — placed on the property after months of code violations racked up.

Combined with the $3,000 a month she pays to rent a storage warehouse for her nonprofit Sadie Holmes Help Services, and the $6,600 a year in property taxes, Holmes said the gargantuan debt now threatens to overwhelm her.

"I'm grateful for this building," Holmes said, "but it's causing me too much stress and too much problems."

It's not clear if the home itself was the major problem (did upkeep, property taxes, etc. cost her so much that she was in trouble financially?) or if her actions (code violations and the associated fines) were her undoing. It's probably a combination of both, though it's also likely (based on some comments in the piece) that she wasn't doing all that well when she only had the home -- especially when you look at that comment of hers above.

Seems like our potential alternative to an EMHE house is looking like a better and better option with every passing day.

Comments

[Tim]

it's never anyone's fault.

[AdamCo]

I think the show is getting better about this. I typically TIVO it and watch a five minute version of the hour program. The houses they are giving away are getting smaller and I believe in one episode there was even a financial adviser involved. They also seem to be giving more houses to people with stable jobs.

I agree that people probably don't take a freebie as seriously as something they've saved their whole lives for...but for some people, the show does seem to be able to help.

Seems like this should have been in her control:

1) Property taxes - If the house is "free", then the taxes should be easy to cover. The cost of the taxes on a monthly basis would be equal to what it would cost to rent a cheap apartment ($550). If you can't afford that and have to move out, how could you afford to live anywhere else.

2) Fines - You typically get notices of violations and then only get fines if you do not correct them in time (which seems to be the case based on the Sherrifs comments).

3) Charitable storage costs - She would have had this regardless of owning the home. It is more of an issue with respect to the charity she runs. If the charity can't cover those costs, what does that really have to do with the home.

Overall, it seems like the house really isn't the cause of her having the money problems.

[Maggie]

With massive flat-screen TVs in every room, I wonder how the new owners can even afford the electricity bills!

The show seems to be one big fake. Even the crocodile tears shed by the cast. Were they selected for their ability to blub on cue?

[Arnold]

So this woman, with little or no business sense, is apparently getting a federal grant (from taxes you and I paid) of . . . no telling how much money. She's paying $3 thousand/month warehouse rent plus paying herself (isn't that what most of these grants are all about?) and they almost always have a minivan or two plus a nice car for the grant recipient. Isn't redistribution of income just wonderful?

[Phil H]

A free house does not equal no taxes. Localities charge real estate taxes based on the actual value of a property, not what they are sold for. Gift or not, the taxes on a $400,000 property would have been much higher than she was paying before the show gave her the new house.

It is one of my pet peaves about this show. They take families that are having enough problems maintaining a simple house and they build them a huge 4000 or 5000 house that requires much higher taxes, utilites and upkeep.

It seems like such a great gesture to give someone a huge new home, but in reality if they did not have the means to maintain a little tiny house they surely do not have the resources to maintain s huge 5000 square foot home.

[Tim]

Just goes to show you can redistribute the wealth, but that does not mean people are smart enough to keep it. The reason some people have nothing is because they don't want to work for it. Give me, give me, give me. I like the one about the people that borrowed $450,000 after Ty remodeled the house.