The struggle to hang onto 'American Dream' in mortgage crisis

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CLEVELAND, United States (AFP) - The desperation of scores of Americans evicted from their homes and denied standard credit lines has given birth to a new market: developers who make a hefty profit reselling foreclosed homes to the poor.

Retiree Georgina Wilborn, 70, and her daughter Ola, a 45-year-old homemaker, agreed to pay 400 dollars a month for the next 15 years to buy their home back from the developer who snapped it up at auction.

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Texas-based Econohomes bought it for 7,875 dollars in September, and resold it to the Wilborns for 34,000 dollars.

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Blacklisted by the banks, and desperate to hang onto their American Dream, they were forced to turn to companies like Econohomes, which are buying abandoned houses by the handful in cities like Cleveland.

The midwestern city has become the poster child of the subprime crisis in a country where some 2.1 million borrowers are behind on their mortgage payments.

AFP

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