19 Comments on Will Extreme Makeover Harper Family Lose Home?

Attorneymom on Thu, 31st Jul 2008 2:48 pm


I was too angry to post this story on my blog. I am trying to keep my blog atmosphere on a positive note. I am really tempted to add this couple to my SYAD list.

regina on Thu, 31st Jul 2008 4:11 pm


I don’t personally know them so I don’t want to be seen as “judging” them BUT good Lord!! The house was free, and your kids scholarships are free! All you had to do was get a job and pay the taxes!! Seriously, stupid moves were made there. I have one child in college so I know what it cost! That just made it bad for other deserving people! Wow!
You can take people out of the ghetto but you can’t always take the ghetto out of the people!
Sad…

theo.johnson on Thu, 31st Jul 2008 5:11 pm


Attorneymom & regina,

Thanks for the comments. I don’t consider it judging them. They obviously made some bad decisions and it’s sucks that all of the time and money people put into the project is going down the drain.

I don’t understand it.

theo.johnson on Thu, 31st Jul 2008 5:12 pm


Comments on Twitter:

BWBConference @tjohnson3 they are going to lose that home. They lost the house the minute they signed the home equity loan. They are not alone about 9 hours ago from web in reply to tjohnson3

BWBConference @tjohnson3 Theo thats what happens when you mortgage a secured asset to pursue an unsecured business dream about 9 hours ago from web in reply to tjohnson3

zhae00 on Wed, 6th Aug 2008 2:26 pm


Yeah, that is crazy! The real victims here are the Harper kids. They finally get a great place to live and their parents make a really stupid decision ( I think they forgot that their McMansion was free and that they never had money, otherwise they wouldn’tve went to the bank like that). The kids had their scholarships taken away and they will now have to move into another dump, because you know the parents can’t afford anything close to what they had. They weren’t on ‘deal or no deal’ they were on extreme home makeover. And if you need a loan that big from the bank and know you have nothing to give, then its not a good idea. Shameful!

OhioMom on Mon, 8th Sep 2008 9:43 am


While I agree that the decision this family made was a poor one, let’s not be so quick to judge. Remember, this is a couple who worked hard to move out of the projects in New York to provide a better life for their children, so I wouldn’t exactly call them deadbeats. In an effort to give them the benefit of the doubt, consider the possibility that this business venture was a dream they wanted to pursue for a long time, but never had the capital to finance it. Maybe they saw it as a way to permanantly provide for their children, something they could pass on to prosper their family for generations. How do we know that some slick-talking “business partner” whom they trusted didn’t convince them that this was a sound investment to make only to take advantage of them? The thing is, we only see what they did as a poor decision because it failed. Had the business succeeded, it would have been a “calculated risk”, or better yet, an “extension” of the gift that had been given to them. They would have been the epitome of the American Dream! Who knows what caused this family to do what they did? Whatever the situation, I just find it hard to believe that, after everything that family lost (a son), and everything they went through, greed and ungratefulness had anything to do with it. Then again, I could be totally wrong…

theo.johnson on Mon, 8th Sep 2008 11:22 am


OhioMom, that’s fair, but why put the whole house at risk? They could have refinanced a part of it and gotten the rest from a bank. I know loans are hard to come across, but I just can’t see putting up my home.

If it were a home they’d purchased and worked hard to get, then cool, that’s on them. But a lot of money was generously given to them and I can understand the town’s frustration. It just seems like a slap in the face to all the people who wanted to help them. I like Extreme Makeover and I like seeing what they did for each family. It’s touching and this just puts a bad taste in my mouth.

NewYorker on Mon, 15th Sep 2008 9:12 pm


I’ve never understood how any of the families who have benefitted from the Extreme Makeover homes could afford to pay the taxes, utility costs and maintenance fees required to operate them. I can only imagine what it must cost to heat, cool or light the mega homes these people receive on the program.

Dr. Phil just interviewed this couple in an attempt to understand how they could have gotten into this mess. They stated that their taxes went from $1000 to $5000 a year when the taxes were supposed to have remained fixed. They said their monthly operating expenses on the place were $5000 to $6000. They took the cash they were given and paid off the mortgage on the that was demolished. But the biggest thing that came out was that they made a bunch of bad money decisions that failed.

While they scrimped and saved to get out of the projects, what they managed to save was probably just the bare minimum to buy the house with a bad sewer problem. They likely had no concept about how to manage that kind of new found “wealth”.

CSK on Tue, 16th Sep 2008 1:59 pm


It’s inevitable that when extreme home makeover and your community gives you a gift such as this, that your operating expenses and taxes are going to go up. But no one considers that in most cases, you no longer have a house payment. In the case of the Harpers, even though their “taxes went from $1000 to $5000 a year when the taxes were supposed to have remained fixed and they said their monthly operating expenses on the place were $5000 to $6000″ they needed under $1,000 per month to cover these costs! If each of the Harpers worked for just 24K a year making $12 an hour they could have covered that. All they had to do was keep the jobs they had or get jobs to insure that their kids would be provided for in that new house that was so much more than a home. They took it for granted. When you are given such a gift, you shouldn’t even consider a “calculated risk”. You should count your blessings and do everything you can to protect them.

jessie on Mon, 6th Oct 2008 1:01 pm


Are you kidding me???? They had a FREE home and they blew it. Their operating expenses went up to $5,000 – $6,000 a month???? What the hell were they doing? They obvisouly have no idea how to save on energy. My company has a bigger building than that and the operating expenses (water, garbage, PG&E etc etc) is less than that and this building is twice the size of their house. In addition, taxes going from $1,000 a year to $5,000 a year is nothing. All they had to do was keep the job they had and they would have been living the easy life. They go on Dr. Phil looking for more hand outs. I mean I feel for them for losing their son. There is nothing worse than losing a child. Nothing. But they obviously are still looking for a free hand out and making excuses for their own stupidity. Now I guess they’re back to the projects where they began. I feel for those poor kids. They shouldn’t have to suffer because their parents are stupid.

amanda on Tue, 14th Oct 2008 6:30 pm


They were given $100,000 for expenses which they used to pay their mortgage. So all they needed to come up with was $5000 + $6000 and living expenses? There were two adults in that family. They couldn’t pull that off? I cannot help but think that greed, ignorance and low self esteem had to be a factor in making such dumb decisions. $450,000 to create a business? So now you have a home payment (say $3000+) and now business expenses as well. Someone walked into their home and convinced them to do it. Someone made some money- someone had to have scammed them. I don’t feel sorry for them because they don’t deserve a home like that. The Harpers confirmed that by their actions. What I do wonder is if the parents can ever forgive themselves for what they’ve stolen from their children.

Sinjin322 on Thu, 23rd Oct 2008 5:47 pm


Having read all the replies and reasons I can only say what this come down to is one simple word/concept “CHOICE”. We are all given the dignity of choice. No one put a gun to these peoples heads, whatever “reasoning” they care to pander to the media does not change the fact that they made a foolish, self centered choice. It speaks to their character or lack thereof that they did this, and by their choice have shown that they are truly unworthy of what was given them. As a side bar ABC should really make better choices in the building of these echo unfriendly behemoth houses. No family of that size requires that kind of square footage to live in. A more modest home would have been much wiser, I say this being fully aware that the name of the show is “Extreme Home makeover” not Modest. It just goes to show you cant save people from themselves

sam on Fri, 28th Nov 2008 7:36 pm


i think it’s a bit harsh to judge b4 you know the facts, today’s economical state just shows how bad it is out there. maybe they were just trying to give back a little by going into construction. it’s not like they wasted the money on drugs or overspending on themselves. i’ve seen so much construction put on hold because there is nothing out there to build. I think it’s a shame that this is happening to them they were trying to invest in a future that is economicaly bad right now and maybe were miss advised, like i said who are we to judge we are not in thier shoes and i wish them all the best and i hope this all works out for them.

frank on Thu, 15th Jan 2009 5:54 pm


People really shouldn’t judge this family. So what they got a free house. From what i know of Exteme Makeover they only do this for good honest people with some form of history. This family choose to use the house to make an even better life for themselfs & Due to the state of the economy they could loose everything.. Did they do it for greed? No!. Did they do it to indulge? No!. They did it to build a future.
How dare anybody come on a site and slate them for trying to build a future for their family. You don’t know anything about these people.

The credit crunch screwed them over. These people have done nothing to be ashamed of. A gift is a gift and what the recipient wants to do with that is upto them. What a bunch of judgemental assholes on this site.

theo.johnson on Mon, 19th Jan 2009 1:36 am


Wow frank! Judgmental assholes?

The whole purpose of a blog is to express your opinion about things you find interesting. MY issue is with the fact that they did it on someone else’s dime and time. The purpose of the show was to make a struggling family’s life a little better by giving them a home and a way to pay for it.

The future for the family was set in motion by ABC. Scholarships, a home, paid utilities. Come on! I was disappointed because it seemed to be a slap in the face to all who made it happen. I have no issues with taking risks to build a dream. The most successful people in the world are where they are because of it. But the future of the family in my opinion was moving in the right direction when they said “Move that bus!”

mynxr on Sat, 24th Jan 2009 5:40 am


It’s one thing to get an equity loan on a house that you purchased with your own sweat equity. It’s a totally different story to put the house up for an unsecured loan for the value of the home when it was donated/given to you. This could put the generosity of Extreme Makeover in jeopardy not to mention dramatically decrease the kindness of strangers. Can’t they put some kind of clause in the contract that the family signs that they can’t use the house as collateral for a loan of any kind for any reason??

In today’s economy, a construction company was a very poor investment. Didn’t this family research starting a construction company and how hard it would be to get it off the ground before jumping into it or was this just a pipe dream they’ve had and saw a way to make the dream come true regardless of the consequences.

Are you sure the kids will lose their scholarships? They shouldn’t because they should be in the kids’ names not the parents so those at least should be safe.

MikeG on Sun, 1st Mar 2009 11:37 pm


Regardless of the outcome I think it is apalling to be gambling with your home. What makes it worse is that 1,800 people donated their time and work so that they could have this home. The mind blowing issue is really why did they have to use ALL the equity of the house? Although I don’t agree with using ANY portion of the house, why couldn’t they use like 10 % or 20% of the house’s equity.

Geo on Tue, 22nd Sep 2009 2:39 pm


I recently watched a short interview with the lady and it seems like they are driving around in a brand new Avalanche. unbelievable.

goutie on Wed, 18th May 2011 12:10 pm


Seriously, some of you posters need some information from a local gal. The house, I believe is in Clayton County, not Henry Country like some blogs said. I grew up there from the age of 10 til 18. My parents still live there. My parents build their dream home there around the time the EM crew built the Harper’s house. My parents house is worth more, more square footage, etc. The expenses they quote make no sense. My parents expenses with the initial house in Clayton County, 2 kids, 2 private school tuitions and my 3 relatives living with use for 10 years, kids went to public school, was less than 6,000 a month. 3 kids in public school and a less expensive house cost more? By using my parents property tax bill as an estimate, I had estimated about 3,000 a year for the property taxes, so 230 a month increase. With the 250,00 in the bank making 3 per cent interest, they couldn’t find the 230 a month. The mom or the 17 year old couldn’t work 10 hours a week at chick fil A? Also, when they saw they couldn’t make the expenses, they took out a business loan for 100 per cent of the equity? Sell the house instead. Because of the economy Henry and Clayton counties have for sale signs EVERYWHERE!!!! IF they had sold the 450,000 home for 225,000…..a steal for someone who has the money, they could have bought a 200,000 home in the same area. A NICE HOME, trust me, I see what people are asking. Then, if you have to start a business, save some money but if you are not going to do that, use the 250,000. At least when they lose that money it will just be kids not going to college instead of not having a home to live in. HOPE scholarship will pay tuition if the kids get a 1200 on math/cr of the sat, so if the parents could have blown 90% of the money, the kids could maybe still have gone. Sorry but this family makes me sick. What is it with people who use “We shouldn’t judge, only God should” nonsense. When you hear about a terrorist killing innocent children, you think its horrible, you don’t say “WE shouldn’t judge. To conclude my long post, Clayton County is known for bad things, and these people helped. You know people see a black family messing up and some blame the whole race. Its wrong but it happens and this IDIOTIC family did not help.

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