Foreclosure Fouls Up Sports Stars
It’s not just average Americans who are losing their homes to foreclosure these days. Even rich and famous athletes who earned millions of dollars during their careers can be subjected to the emotional highs and lows of losing a home.
Two recent cases in point: record-setting baseball player Jose Canseco, and former NBA star Latrell Sprewell.
Canseco, who first came to prominence as a right fielder with the Oakland Athletics back in the 1980s, has decided to walk away from his home in the Los Angeles suburb of Encino, Calif.
Canseco owed Washington Mutual more than $2.5 million on the 7,300 square foot mansion with four bedrooms and six bathrooms on an 18,000 square-foot lot. Neighbors reportedly call it “The Hotel” because it was the biggest house in the neighborhood.
The home went to auction on April 14 with an opening bid of almost $2.1 million. The property has since gone back to the lender as an REO. Canseco bought the property back in April 2005 for almost $2.8 million with a first trust deed equal to the opening bid, according to RealtyTrac.
Recently appearing on the Inside Edition television show, the one-time American League Rookie of the Year — who went on to establish batting records in many categories during his storied career — said much of the money he made as a ball player went to supporting his family for two decades. Plus he has paid out an estimated $7 to $8 million to settle “a couple of divorces.”
Canseco told Inside Edition, “I do have a judgment on my home and it to me is very strange because it didn’t make financial sense for me to keep paying a mortgage on a home that was basically owned by someone else. I decided to let it go, but in most cases and most families, they have nowhere else to go.”
The author of two books, Canseco has most recently made headlines in the controversy over the use of steroids by professional athletes. He now lives in a smaller home in an unknown location.
As for Sprewell, just last week he lost the home he purchased for $405,000 back in 1994 in the affluent Milwaukee suburb of River Hills to foreclosure, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
Citizens Bank filed foreclosure proceedings against Sprewell because he failed to make his mortgage payments of $2,593 per month since last September and owed the bank $320,284. The home was assessed at $610,000, according to RealtyTrac, and the property has an estimated fair market value of $667,980, the Journal-Sentinel reported.
Sprewell played 13 seasons in the NBA for three teams. Last year, he turned down a three-year, $21 million contract extension from the Minnesota Timberwolves, claiming, “I’ve got to feed my family.” At the peak of his career, Sprewell was making $14.6 million a year. Now he can’t pay $2,600 in monthly mortgage payments.
For Sprewell and Canseco, as for other celebrities, it’s just goes to show that the ball doesn’t always bounce their way. Will Sprewell and Canseco be the last high-profile statistics of the foreclosure crisis? Or are more high ticket homes due to become casualties in the future?
Let us know what you think!