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'Extreme Makeover' house too much for family
Victor Marrero, who on Aug. 5 received a brand-new five-bedroom house in Pennsauken courtesy of the hit TV show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, briefly put it up for sell to deal with some hefty bills. Living on a small pension and staggering under the weight of old debts and new taxes, Marrero said he panicked.
He reversed course yesterday, in part because Urban Promise Ministries, which donated the land for the house, has right of first refusal on any sale. Officials from Urban Promise, a faith-based educational campus for children in East Camden, said they would meet with Marrero to discuss how the family can stay in the house.
J.S. Hovnanian & Sons, builder of the house, gave the family $59,000 to cover expenses. But Marrero said he quickly burned through the money, paying off debts that stretched back to a 1994 heart operation. Then there were the taxes. Marrero, who has five sons and lives on a pension of $939 a month, paid $2,016 in property taxes in November. In February, he wrote out a check for $1,512. On May 1, another $1,512 was due.
He listed the house for $499,900. Leslie Taylor, with Zip Realty, the listing agency, said selling the house would have been "challenging." - Sam Wood and Troy Graham
