LA QUINTA — Like a lot of houses here, the Spanish-style five-bedroom Gary and Debra Magsam bought three years ago has a sparkling pool, a designer kitchen and a nearby golf course.
Now it has one other feature common to the area: a foreclosure notice. Barring a last-minute reprieve, the Magsams' house will be auctioned June 27. They've begun to pack.
"We've accepted the fact that it's going to have to take place," Gary, 48, said of their impending departure. "For a long time we felt, 'Why did this have to happen to us?' " he said. "Now we know a lot of other people are going through the same thing. It seems to make it a little easier to accept."
The Magsams are among an estimated 243,000 American households, including more than 47,000 in California, that face the prospect of foreclosure this year. Congress is expected to pass legislation by the fall that would help an estimated 500,000 households avoid foreclosure. But for the Magsams and thousands of others, the relief would probably be too little to help them, even if it weren't already too late.
The Magsams aren't looking for a handout, however, and they don't blame predatory mortgage brokers or Wall Street financial wizards for their plight. Instead, they say they simply got caught up in the excitement of the real estate boom and the bad judgment that went with it -- on the part of lenders and borrowers alike.
"The banks loaned money to all kinds of people they shouldn't have, including us," Gary said. "This situation we're in is one of our own making. We were not taken advantage of."
As analysts explain the rising tide of foreclosures sweeping the country, many point to first-time home buyers who used sub-prime loans to finance properties they couldn't quite afford. But many of those facing foreclosure are people like the Magsams -- experienced homeowners who simply didn't expect that values would fall so hard, so fast.
Rising home prices created "a false sense of security," said UCLA economist Edward E. Leamer. "Borrowers are realizing some of the decisions they made over the last few years were not that wise."
Gary acknowledges that before the boom went bust, he and his wife were among its many beneficiaries.
In 1999, the Magsams and their two sons came from Wisconsin to visit relatives in the Palm Springs area. They liked it so much they decided to stay, happy to be done with the Wisconsin winters. That year, the couple bought a house in the Coachella Valley town of Bermuda Dunes.
