Extreme Foreclosure: Homeless Edition

Three and a half years after the Harper family got a spiffy new McMansion courtesy of ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, their new house is up for foreclosure.

As soon as the cameras left and the paint dried, the Harper family promptly used their new home as collateral against a $450,000 loan for a construction company that ultimately failed, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.

In January 2005, Extreme Makeover bulldozed the Harpers run-down ranch house and enlisted hundreds and hundreds of big-hearted volunteers to replace it with a dream home: four bedrooms, a three-car garage, multiple fire places, a solarium, and a music room. Tears ensued. Host Ty Pennington's hair stood tall. You know the drill.

As icing on the cake, Beazer Homes, which built the house, even handed the family $250,000 (raised by employees and corporate sponsors) to help the Harpers care for their home and send the kids to college.

"It's aggravating. It just makes you mad. You do that much work, and they just squander it," grumbled Lake City Mayor Willie Oswalt, who was one of some 1,800 volunteers, to the Journal-Constitution.

As homeowners from Memphis to Malibu lose ownership of their homes at a record pace, the Harpers will have a hard time playing the sympathy card -- maybe as hard a time as Jose Canseco, the former steroid-abusing ballplayer who lost his California home to foreclosure earlier this year.

Nobody likes to see a family be pushed out of their house, but the episode serves as yet another reminder that risky financial bets often end badly.

by Liz Gunnison