Housing Meltdown: Why home prices could drop 25% more on average

Phyllis Gilpatrick was in a nursing home, recuperating from her third hip surgery, on the day she and her husband refinanced their Brighton house.

She was in no condition for an office closing. So a van whisked her home, where she initialed a pile of loan documents while reclining on her back in a wheelchair.

Signing the documents put Phyllis, a disabled truck dispatcher, and her husband, Donald, a retired trucker, into a subprime loan for $301,500 that would soon double their previous payments and leave them on the brink of foreclosure.

I was too much worried about the wife and everything, said Donald. I didn't read the paperwork.

Their story provides a look into the swelling subprime-lending crisis. read more