DAHLIA Octaviani Noferdie was baffled when her house in Castro Valley in San Francisco, worth US$800,000, was valued only at US$100,000 by her bank. She was even more baffled when she was asked to pay US$6,000 in monthly installments on the house, twice the usual amount of US$3,000. “The price of the house plunged, but monthly installment went up,” the 28-year-old Indonesian woman told Tempo last week.

The mother of three rushed to hire a la