Extreme Home Makeover... Am I the only one? - Page 3

I wathed that episode, and no, I didn't shed one tear.













I shed sevral.

The thing to remember is that Reality TV isn't reality.

It is carefully scripted and edited for wide audience appeal.

Sad thing is, most of these people end up losing the beautiful houses or selling them because they cannot afford to pay the tax burden created.................

I nominated my best friends family when they were looking for a family here in Montana.
they chose a family living in an old "chicken house", that house was better then my friends.
Friends house is considered a historical land mark. It is 2 homestead shacks slapped together with 8 people at the time living in it.

The sad part is his Dad was murdered when he was 13 and his ranch was divided into thirds. He paid the inheritance tax on it, twice.
They always volunteered to help out whoever needed it and were willing to donate to any cause to help a family out. Home schooled their 6 kids, 4-H and nuerous other things they did.

After she died in '07 we were going to nominate them again, but the Dad hooked up with a gold digger and nobody was willing to help him out.
I just could not bring myself to do it and let that person live in her dream house.

Oh I know!  I thought that was so sweet

I think I would cry if I was forced to watch it lol.

pips&peeps :

Sad thing is, most of these people end up losing the beautiful houses or selling them because they cannot afford to pay the tax burden created.................

That is not true.  One family has lost their home because the idiots remortgaged the home, took all the equity out and went on some extended vacation.  You can't fix stupid, I'm sorry to be so harsh, but I just couldn't believe they did that.

What happens here is EHM leases the house, and 'improvements' made under a lease aren't taxable, only when the home is sold.  So, they do what they do, there is no undue tax burden to the family, except for the tax increase due to home value increase.  Usually there are funds set aside to help with that additional tax burden initially, but the family really is responsible once the show ends.

I love Extreme Makeover.  My favorite episode, I think, was Camp Barnabus.  The camp for kids with disabilities.  They redid the family's house and the community room for the camp.  It was really cool.  Of course, I also loved the Ripatti family the LAPD officer shot in the line of duty and paralyzed from the waist down.

I haven't watched in a long long time. What always got me was that the homes they build are like at least 5 times the size of what they had which would make the utilities that much more expensive. The hike in utilities would kill us.

Many of the families have had problems for lots of different reasons.

I always wondered how many of them lost their houses when they couldn't pay the taxes and utilities on the huge new one. They don't always pay off the mortgage and even if they did, the taxes on some of those humongous homes would be more than I could pay, certainly. Why on earth do they build mansions?


And, I've watched it on occasion, but honestly, I don't care for it. But, then, I don't support Habitat for Humanity, either.