Philanthropy Meets Wretched Excess

The real estate madness that infected our country and nearly brought down the economy has some surprising victims: the beneficiaries of the TV show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.

Some of the families that benefited from the show's whirlwind remodels can't pay their made-over real estate taxes or the utility bills for their new McMansions, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The premise was sweet: Find a family that's struggling with debt and illness and bring in a crew to rehabilitate their home, a la Christmas in April, now Rebuilding Together. They send the family off on a week's vacation, then bring them back for the big reveal.

But things got out of hand. Why just fix the roof and paint, when you can install a carousel or a home theater? And why would someone watch the show week after week if it showed nothing but hanging sheetrock and installing kitchen cabinets?

The web guide site Finding Dulcinea has more news stories and background on these problems, which date back to the height of the boom times in 2008. According to the site,

The Hassall Family [of Kentucky] was given a 3,298-square-foot home in 2006, a gift that the community felt they deserved. Brian and Michelle Hassall, the parents of two adopted children, work as a police officer and a teacher in the community, and they both suffer from health problems. For one week, their friends and neighbors worked with the ABC show "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" to build the family a new home that would better suit their needs. But three years later, reports the Lexington Herald-Leader, the family is going to sell that home. Left with more than $100,000 to pay off on their mortgage, and an increase in property taxes and utility bills, the Hassalls have decided that the stress of the home is more than they can take. Although some in the community are angry with the decision, most seem to be sympathetic to the Hassalls' situation.

High taxes and soaring utility bills aren't the only reason some Extreme Makeover families struggle. In 2008, an Atlanta family lost their made-over house after they took out a home equity line of credit on the new palace for a business that failed.

Extreme Makeover is ratcheting things down with its newest crop of houses, the Journal says.

Tracy Hutson, an interior designer who has been with "Extreme Makeover" since the beginning, says homes are receiving more earth-friendly products, such as low water-flow toilets and solar panels, curbing the giant electricity bills that caused a hardship for some families. "I think our hearts were in the right place, but we just got carried away," says Ms. Hutson. "It can be extreme without being the biggest house you've ever seen."

That's good advice for anyone considering a remodeling project, whether or not you'll be on TV.