He used to analyze risk for a living. Now he’s drowning in it.
A former commercial real estate credit analyst called into “The Ramsey Show” with a financial mess even Dave Ramsey called desperate. Out of work for seven months, he told Ramsey and co-host Jade Warshaw that he was carrying four mortgages, a car loan, and a credit card, all while driving Uber to scrape together income.
His old job paid $130,000 a year. His wife still brings in that amount—but his own income dropped to next to nothing after his position was eliminated amid $2 billion in loan defaults. Since then, the family’s been selling what they can. The goal: downsize, simplify, survive.
“I found your stuff a little too late,” he admitted.
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At the time of the call, he’d already listed nearly everything he owned for sale—including his car. They were even thinking about offloading their primary home. But the real eyebrow-raiser was his proposed deal with a potential buyer on one of the rentals.
The plan?
The buyer would pay $20,000 upfront and “take over” the mortgage—while the caller remained on the loan.
“They can’t take over your mortgage, honey,” Ramsey said. “That mortgage has a due-on-sale clause. You transfer title, they’re going to call the loan.”
Translation: if the title changes hands—even informally—the bank can demand the entire mortgage be paid off immediately. And yes, they will notice.
The caller insisted he’d stay on the title, so technically nothing had changed. Ramsey wasn’t buying it. “You haven’t really sold the house. You just lease-purchased it to someone,” he said. “The buyer you have is not a real buyer. Run him off.”
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Then came the punchline:
“You’re going to get in trouble here, man, because you’re getting desperate.”
The financial breakdown paints the picture:
Primary home: $540,000 mortgage at 5.75% at $4,400/month
Rental #1: $453,000 at 6.5% at $2,956/month
Rental #2: $192,000 at $1,119/month
Rental #3 with a business partner: $184,000 at 11.5%
Plus: back taxes, forced insurance charges, and late payments
That’s over $1.36 million in mortgages alone, not including the car loan or credit card debt. Altogether, it’s likely closer to $1.8 million in total obligations, as implied by the title of the call—while only one spouse is earning a stable income.
