MARK WAITE / PVT Michelle Johnson, of Consumer Credit Counseling, advises a homeowner. Advertisement

About 30 people walked into the Pahrump Community Library during a rainy two-hour period last Friday.

The weather outside seemed to echo the gloom among those homeowners taking advantage of a mobile resource center that might help them avoid foreclosure.

Representatives of lending institutions like Countrywide and Wells Fargo Bank were on hand in a program organized by U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D.-Nev. The mobile resource centers traveled to five Nevada counties with the highest foreclosure rates.

Michelle Johnson, president and chief executive officer of Consumer Credit Counseling, said she's heard some real hard luck tales but not as many as in Las Vegas the day before, when 250 people showed up.

A difference in Pahrump is that some residents are occupants of mobile homes that had been converted to real property, she said.

Johnson said 60 percent of home loans made in Clark County over a one-year period were non-traditional, 30-year mortgages. Some homeowners have seen mortgages take up more and more of their income, but Johnson said many people don't pay attention to all the paperwork.

"If you go into it with your eyes wide open, that's fine. But most people don't. Almost everybody has said, 'I thought I had a fixed rate mortgage,' " Johnson said.

There's already regulation of the lending industry in the truth in lending statement. But she said many people don't bother to wade through all the paperwork.

"I know it's in a stack of papers this high, and it's hard to get through, but it's there. People should accept the responsibility of understanding what it is they're signing," Johnson said.

Adjustable rate mortgages can be advantageous to someone in the military, for example, who may buy a home for a deployment that will only last five years, she said.

"They keep their payments low, they can take advantage of whatever equity they might build through appreciation, sell it and move on. So they don't have to come up with a lot of down payment," Johnson said.

But she added, "The consumer has an obligation to understand what it is they're getting. The lenders, unfortunately, are anxious to make a sale. So they're going to say, 'The guy says I can afford $1,400 a month, here's a loan for you for $1,400 a month.'"

Johnson said it isn't always easy advising people trying to save their homes of their rights and responsibilities.

"It's not always easy because losing a home is such a personal thing," she said.

Some property owners file for bankruptcy to stave off foreclosure. But Johnson said bankruptcy attorneys sometimes don't tell the homeowners they still have to make the house payment.

"I talked to people here today who said 'My income is $3,000 and my house payment is $2,700 and I'm going to file bankruptcy to stop it.' But for how long? It's going to stall it, but now you have the make the house payment and the default," Johnson said.

"Once you file bankruptcy it will stall it. So you get 60 or 90 days but then you either have to make the payments or they're going to foreclose. So now you've taken the bankruptcy hit and spent a couple thousand dollars to make that happen, and you still lose your house."

A counselor from Countrywide said she wasn't authorized to speak to the press.