2 Good 2 B 4got10

From Newsday, we have: Loan was too good to be true.

Robin and William Fitzgerald always wanted to buy a home, but with no savings, mediocre credit and jobs as a legal secretary and truck driver, they thought it was beyond their reach.

Then, in 2005, the Fitzgeralds believed their luck had turned.

Through a friend, they met Aaron Wider, a Garden City mortgage banker who also owned several homes in the Massapequa area. They settled on a two-family high ranch in North Massapequa at a sales price of $805,000.

Because Wider also was a mortgage banker, he said he could approve a loan that other banks wouldn't, the Fitzgeralds recalled. "It was like he was giving us an opportunity for us to fulfill our dream," Robin Fitzgerald said.

After a year of struggling with mortgage payments that -- minus rent from tenants -- were $3,400 a month, the Fitzgeralds fell behind. Last March, Pennsylvania-based GMAC Bank, which had bought their loans from Wider's bank, began foreclosure proceedings.

Only then, after hiring their own appraiser, did the Fitzgeralds learn that their home was valued at $545,000 when they bought it.

No savings, mediocre credit, barely job-worthy, didn't do any homework, borrowed $800K to buy a house which may or may not have been "worth" $545K.

What a bunch of fuckin' ding-dongs!

George Cornielle was living in Elmhurst with his wife and grown daughter in 2005, when a friend who did construction work for Wider asked Cornielle if he was interested in buying a home.

"I wasn't even thinking about a house," Cornielle said. "I said 'I don't think I qualify.' " But the friend assured Cornielle that Wider could arrange a loan and soon Cornielle was in contract to buy a high ranch in East Massapequa for $812,500.

Cornielle, who is a $52,000-a-year catering supervisor at Kennedy Airport, said he paid a down payment of $17,000 and didn't ask questions when lawyers placed dozens of documents before him to sign. Cornielle said he used a lawyer Wider provided him; Wider did not comment on Cornielle's case.

Cornielle said he did not notice that personal information in his loan application was incorrect. The papers say he has two children, ages 13 and 14, and that he earns $14,500 a month -- more than triple what he said he actually makes.

Although Cornielle is not in foreclosure, he said he is one month behind on his mortgage payments and has borrowed up to $60,000 from family and friends in order to avoid defaulting.

Cornielle eventually obtained copies of the appraisals, which showed the house was worth $830,000 and $825,000 in 2005. Cornielle paid for a new appraisal in July, which showed the house was valued last summer at $484,000.

Wider said he considers the Fitzgeralds personal friends. Robin Fitzgerald tells a different story.

"I said Aaron, 'You're like a walking angel.' That's how I felt about him," Fitzgerald said. "We felt like he was the answer to our prayers."

Now, she said, she often cries herself to sleep.

Didn't notice the phantom income; didn't notice two fake young children; didn't notice the fake appraisal of $825K from $484K; borrowed more than 15X his income to buy a house which was "worth" slightly more than half that; currently continuing to borrow $60K from family which will obviously never get paid back.

Now his wife cries herself to sleep.

Lady, you're gonna learn a lesson as old as time : debt never sleeps!

Is this a great fuckin' country or what?