Conseco Finance

Conseco was once a hugely profitable financial services company. Then it bought Green Tree, a finance company that specialized in trailer homes and that had followed disastrously loose lending policies (see story). Conseco experienced huge losses on the Green Tree portfolio and in 2002 filed for bankruptcy.

Not only are things tough around Conseco headquarters, its customers are feeling the pain as well, as the complaints in this section show, and as our story predicted two years ago. The problem is that Greentree wrote 30-year loans on thousands of mobile homes -- making it almost a certainty that the loan would outlast the trailer, which in fact is just what has happened.

Conseco - Complaints

• Conseco - General Complaints
• Conseco - Insurance Disputes
• Conseco - High Interest Rates
• Conseco - Principal Repayment
• Conseco Insurance

Although the consumer complaints take many forms there are a couple of common elements:

1. Consumers are "upside down." Unlike real estate, which usually gains value, mobile homes lose value over time. They depreciate like cars. Thus, the trailer can wind up at zero value when the consumer still owes thousands of dollars.
2. Mobile homes are not considered good credit risks. Most mortgage companies won't write loans on mobile homes. Therefore, there is less competition and consumers are more likely to get a bad deal.
3. The interest is paid back first! Many mobile home buyers don't realize that, like all mortgages, they will pay back virtually all of the interest on their loan before the principal goes down.

Combine all three of the above and it's apparent that taking out a big loan over a long period of time on a mobile home is almost certainly to end in grief. You should only consider buying a mobile home if you can afford to pay a large amount of the purchase price in cash and finance the rest of the purchase with a traditonal personal loan, rather than a secured mortgage.