Don't let low mortgage rates tempt you

If we've learned just one thing in recent years, it's this: If it looks too good to be true -- it's probably a subprime mortgage rate that's going to balloon soon after you turn the key.

That's what hundreds of thousands of homeowners and former homeowners across America have discovered as they lost their homes to foreclosure.

It's also what Brad Thompson and members of the Southeast Raleigh Assembly (SERA) are trying to prevent others from discovering.

"The best way to fight foreclosure is to not get into it in the first place," Thompson told me this week.

The city of Raleigh, he said, is "just rolling out the 'Save Raleigh Homes' program, trying to stem the tide of people losing homes. We're trying to bring awareness to people looking to become first-time homebuyers so they won't become entrapped in these types of risky devices."

The risky devices are adjustable rate mortgages and subprime interest rates. "We believe that people buy homes based on what they can afford at the moment," Thompson said. "What a lot of people don't understand is that those low buy-ins are usually just hooks. Once they're in the house, they become victims of much higher mortgage rates."

The percentage of foreclosures in the Triangle is not as high as in other parts of the state or nation. But Thompson said "the foreclosure bug is especially troubling in Southeast Raleigh. An escalating foreclosure rate can render a neighborhood unstable" -- and, he could've added, devastate one that's even moderately unstable to begin with.

While the federal government is providing billions of dollars to bail out banks devastated by the foreclosure bug, it does not provide money directly to bail out people whose home appetites were larger than their incomes or who were hornswoggled by lenders into buying more house than they could afford.

Neither does the Save Raleigh Homes program.

"We understand that the biggest thing people need at the time of foreclosure is money, but we're not a funding organization," he explained. "We identify organizations that do have money and direct residents to them."

Durham, similarly, has sponsored workshops and forums to advise people on how to avoid foreclosure, Beverly Thompson, a spokeswoman for the city, said: "We work with community partners" -- including N.C. Central University, Sun Trust Bank and the Durham Housing Authority -- "to help people get information and understand their rights."

The people to whom SERA hopes to toss a life vest before they're even in the water are first-time homebuyers who, Brad Thompson said, "are more likely to get caught up in the enthusiasm of buying a house." That can blind them, he said, "no matter how literate they are... to rapidly escalating payment clauses" buried in fine print.

Last year, just before the housing bubble began to break, I was inundated with mailed, e-mailed and telephoned solicitations offering to help me refinance Casa de Dude. The tantalizing rates promised to save me hundreds of dollars a month, dollars I figured I could use to help finance the education of the hardworking female students who toil nightly at Brothers III and The Foxy Lady.

Even I, nobody's idea of a financial genius, realized that such rates were too good to be true.

If you didn't realize that, realized it too late or are planning to buy a home, call SERA at 1-877-900-2345 or visit its Web site at www.saveraleighhomes.org.