
LOS ANGELES, Dec. 24, 2008
Keeping Homes By Taking In Boarders
CBS Evening News: Struggling To Pay Mortgages, Families Filling Spare Rooms With Renters
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Play CBS Video Video Boarding House Renaissance Many Americans who are finding new ways to hold on to their homes. Ben Tracy reports how some homeowners who are renting to boarders.
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They might look just like a happy family eating dinner, but this is Marlene Mazzi's home, after she and her husband took in two boarders to make ends meet. (CBS)
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In-Depth Q&A: Mortgage Help New plan to allow lenders to alter delinquent loans more quickly.
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Timeline Stopgap Measures A look at the series of government moves to try and stem the financial meltdown.
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- Losing Grasp On The American Dream
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- Renters Caught Up In Foreclosure Crisis
- One Man's Foreclosure, Another's Steal
- The New American Gold Rush
- "Upside Down" Mortgages
Is she surprised by how much things have changed?
"Oh, yeah," Marlene said.
Her husband can't find carpentry work. She lost her business due to the economy. Faced with losing their home, they posted an online ad looking for a boarder, CBS News correspondent Ben Tracy reports.
Unable to afford L.A.'s high rents on her slumping sales job salary, Townsend now pays Marlene Mazzi $750 a month for a bedroom and a bathroom.
"I pay her $200 extra dollars and she makes all my dinners," Townsend said.
And the table is full, ever since Mike Szapko, a chiropractor from Montana, moved in five weeks ago - making close quarters even tighter.
"I've not had to worry about people saying, 'turn the television off' or, 'I'm going to bed at 9, can we be quiet.'" Townsend said. "You know, it's odd."
Marlene's daughter Stephanie is sacrificing more, giving up her bathroom to share one with her parents and her cousin, who moved into what used to be the den.
"You go from living on your own with your family having your own privacy to like all of a sudden it's really fast and it all changes," Stephanie said.
"If you didn't rent out the rooms, if that money wasn't coming in, what would happen?" Tracy asked Mazzi.
"At this moment, I would be on the street. I'll be homeless," Mazzi said.
More and more Americans need help paying their mortgage or their rent.
Roommate postings on Craigslist shot up from 259,000 last year to 419,000 this year - a 62-percent increase.
Laura Fanucchi helps run one of the largest homeshare programs in the country.
"People have lost their retirement incomes and they've lost their jobs and they want to keep their home," Fanucchi said.
With a record one-in-10 mortgage holders now behind on their payments, even some who live in million-dollar homes open their doors to strangers.
"It's like a bed and breakfast without the breakfast," said Rick Lautenbacher, who charges $390 per week for a room in his $2 million Venice Beach home. He needs help with the mortgage as he struggles to sell in a down market.
"I'm just waiting for things to get better," Lautenbacher said.
As for Marlene Mazzi, she's hoping to get back to the life she used to share with only her family.
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Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."





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See all 37 CommentsPosted by rudy6543
And you jump to idiotic conclusions. I have no use for Limbaugh, never voted for George Bush, and spend my spare time in Paris (something a Limbaugh fanatic would presumbably never do).
The truth is the truth is the truth no matter that it doesn''t fit into you sophmoric view of economics or you paranoid delusions about cabals of bankers.
It''s possible to live, even thrive in this economy...you just have to work at it.
Look for it to worsen after the new year when the holiday bills come in- there was no lack of shoppers at the malls and department stores judging by the crowds and traffic.
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An excellent plan! It is difficult to watch others squander their money, especially when we are in open-ended badtimes.
Our neighbors, a young couple with two children, who have bounced from one financial crisis to the next for as long as we have known them, received a sizeable Workers'' Comp settlement earlier this year. So far, they have put in a swimming pool, financed a $55k automobile, redecorated the interior of their house (including new furniture) and, oh, yes.....gotten pregnant with their third child. Also, they blew all the stops for an over the top Santa Claus run. To the best of my knowledge, they are running up debt now, because all the cash is gone.
I think reality will be painful whenever they reach that point.
Maybe, just maybe, this would save some homes or save some jobs.
Anyway, Merry Christmas, everyone. Peace on Earth, Goodwill to all.
You are a socialist and full of class envy.
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Posted by CarlyLaine at 05:18 AM
Since Newster is 100% correct, you must be one of those people he is referring to.
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You''re full of krap, Rif! You''re just another Limbaugh follower bent on blaming regular people for the mess created by greedy bankers and corporations that feed off of our tax dollars. We already have the case of a man who received a pardon from Bush and then had it revoked. This man was guilty of creating mortgages with hidden costs, etc. This is exactly the kind of predatory lending practices that have led to the current situation. As far as I am concerned people like you don''t deserve to live among the regular people of this country. Go live somewhere else.
You are a socialist and full of class envy.
Posted by whitemale08
If I was foolish enough to base my opinion on what has or has not happened to me personally then your comment would make some sense. But then I try to have a more rational basis for forming opinions. You apprently do not labor under that burden of intellectual honesty.
The number of houses owned by either McCain or Gore (to which my commemt was addressed) has nothing to do with the current state of the nation''s finances nor has either man taken part in any "looting" of the people. McCain''s wife''s family made money selling beer and Gore inherited his father''s shares in Occidental Petroleum. Making money selling beer and gasoline has not a thing to do with hedge funds (not that hedge funds are to blame for the current situation).
Indeed, if there is anyone to blame it is the ordinary citizen who wanted, among other things, to own a house bigger than he could afford and demanded that a way be found to borrow the money to do so.
That we had built an economic house of cards was all too apparent quite some time ago. There''s plenty of blame to be spread around including a lot that falls on very rich people who should have known better. But the notion that the poor innocent average citizen has been screwed by a tiny cabal of wicked capitalists is drivel.
Posted by newster1
Apparently you don''t understand how markets work.
While commodities trading is a more or less zero sum game for speculators the stock market is not. Nor, of course, are the stock and commodities markets the only way that people make money.
And if stockholders get rewarded while employees are not then I would note that the jobs for the employees wouldn''t have existed in the first place if the stockholders hadn''t risked their money. And yes, the job of executives is to make sure that the stockholders profit and not to reward the employees at the expense of the stockholders. Of course, a wise manager strikes a reasoned balance between the needs of both since that produces the higest profits in the long run. But a business does not exist to be nice but to make money.
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