In the news

[Anonymous]

Mother, 53, Kills Self Before Foreclosure

AP

TAUNTON, Mass. (July 23) - A 53-year-old wife and mother fatally shot herself soon after faxing a letter to her mortgage company saying that by the time they foreclosed on her house that day, she would be dead.
Police in Taunton said Carlene Balderrama used her husband's high-powered rifle to kill herself Tuesday afternoon, after faxing the letter at 2:30 p.m.

The mortgage company called police, who found Balderrama's body at 3:30 p.m. in her brown-shingled raised ranch house. The auction was scheduled to start at 5 p.m. and interested buyers arrived at the property in Taunton, about 35 miles south of Boston, while Balderrama's body was still inside, according to police chief Raymond O'Berg.

Police did not immediately release the name of the mortgage company. OBerg said Balderrama's fax read, in part, "By the time you foreclose on my house I'll be dead."

OBerg also said a suicide note found next to Balderrama told her husband, John, and 24year-old son to "take the (life) insurance money and pay for the house."

[FretlessMayhem]

That's terrible. It makes me appreciate the roof over my head that much more.

[thrasher865]

Wow, that's horrible.  What's even more horrible is that I am 90% sure that life insurance policy is worthless now.

[Anonymous]

You can probably comfortably raise that assumption to 99%. VERY few insurance companies will pay out in suicides.

In fact, I think only European insurance companies will pay out in that case. :/

Very, very horrible. I'll be praying for their family.

[Anonymous]

Wow, over a forclosure.  People invest so much more than just money into their homes.  I am not passing judgement, but it seems kind of strange to me because I have never owned a home and really don't want to. I could never imagine trying to kill my self over being evicted.

[Anonymous]

I understand! We lost a house in foreclosure but because of massive medical bills that insurance didn't cover....we had one claim alone for over 1/2 million dollars. The guilt is overwhelming and we were in a situation we could not control....I traded my house for my daughters life and I would do it a thousand times over but I still have painful memories of the day we got our notice. I can't imagine losing a home for other reasons...she probably felt like she let her family down....I am sure she had issues anyways but I could see how this pushed her over the edge. I feel so sad for her family. Foreclosure is not forever I wish she knew that.

[jaybird201]

Suicide. A permanent solution to a temporary problem.

[fused]

Yikes!!!!!!!

[WhirledPeasPlease]

There was a reference to this story on CNBC today.

They added that the mortgage company has reached out to the family to try and accommodate them during this time.  (Thank goodness.)

[LouMinotti]

I don't know if anyone here reads CalculatedRisk, but if you are interested in the real estate market, it's a must read blog and is highly respected in the industry itself. Anyway, this story was dissected and and reported in depth on by CR last week...things aren't always the way they seem:

"This is an extremely distressing story: a woman faxes a suicide note to her mortgage servicer on the day the foreclosure sale is scheduled, and is dead by the time the police arrive. Distressing for anyone with what I take to be a normal sense of human decency, that is. To the local and now national media, it seems to be catnip. Carlene Balderrama's personal tragedy is in danger of becoming an indelible urban legend of the Great Predatory Foreclosure Crisis, uncomfortable facts be damned. The tenor of the reporting, of course, makes anyone who expresses any skepticism about the media's line on this sad event sound inhuman. I have been telling myself since I first saw this story that only a fool would try to steer a course through the rock of credulousness or the hard place of callousness. But I guess it's my job to be a fool today..."

Read the rest here: http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2008/07/foreclosure-crisis-and-exploitation-of.html]