{"id":4479,"date":"2009-02-19T15:21:45","date_gmt":"2009-02-19T20:21:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/?p=4479"},"modified":"2009-02-19T15:21:45","modified_gmt":"2009-02-19T20:21:45","slug":"would_you_give_this_man_a_550000_no-money-down_mortgage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2009\/02\/would_you_give_this_man_a_550000_no-money-down_mortgage.html","title":{"rendered":"Would You Give This Man A $550,000 No-Money-Down Mortgage?"},"content":{"rendered":"

But who are we to judge if this somehow saves us all from Great Depression II<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Marlo Saab bought a $555,000, two-family home in Queens three years ago — no money down. <\/p>\n

Now, teetering on the brink of defaulting on his mortgage, Saab is looking to President Obama’s plan for struggling homeowners to help him hold on to his house. <\/p>\n

“I think that his plan gives us hope,” said Saab, 40, a computer technician. “I just want a little help not [to] go down the drain.” <\/p>\n

When he bought the Jamaica Hills house, Saab got an 80\/20 mortgage — splitting his borrowing between two lenders, IndyMac and Countrywide — for a total of $3,400 in monthly payments. <\/p>\n

He makes $80,000 a year and says he has a healthy credit rating. The Saabs have rental income and they’ve paid off their car. <\/p>\n

However, Saab’s overtime has been slashed. His wife is looking for work. The couple also have renovated their home and spend $10,000 a year to send their two kids to Catholic school. <\/p>\n

Saab has racked up $70,000 in credit card bills and borrows from family and friends to make his mortgage. He has never missed a payment, but he’s not sure how much longer that can last.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m pretty sure this is supposed to be a “positive” story, too . . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

But who are we to judge if this somehow saves us all from Great Depression II: Marlo Saab bought a $555,000, two-family home in Queens three years ago — no money down. Now, teetering on the brink of defaulting on his mortgage, Saab is looking to President Obama’s plan for struggling homeowners to help him […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-follow_the_money","category-followed_by_a_perplexed_stroke_of_the_chin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4479"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4480,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4479\/revisions\/4480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}