tonight on "nightline," house broken. mortgage raments are at their lowest in more than 50 years, but can you get one? it's harder than you may think. what you need to know to get a loan. and, out of the ashes. she's young, she's rich. and one of the most gifted female athletes on the planet. but maria sharapova was born into tragedy. we travel with the tennis star, back to the scene of the disaster that she says made her who she is today. plus, after the flood. we go to pakistan, where the worst flooding in 80 years has displayed 20 million people. the humanitarian crisis rose as the u.s. military is flying missions of mercy, into a taliban stronghold.

>> announcer: from the global we sources of abc news, wither the roy moran, cynthia mcfadden and bill weir in new york city, this is "nightline," august 17th, 2010. >> good evening. we begin with further evidence of a soft economy. home loan raments set new lows this month. the average 30-year mortgage rate fell to 4.44%. the lowest since freddie mac records began in 1971. no time like the present to refinance your home? right? not so fast. even people with great credit are having a hard time securing a loan. are having a hard time securing a loan. vicki mabrey looks at what you need to know to score a loan in tonight's "realty check." >> reporter: when brian and suzanne were shopping for their first home, they thought they'd be a lock for a mortgage. they were shocked when they were denied.

>> you know, we've been working for four years of our marriage towards getting our first new home and when we finally were ready to do that, and we went for the mortgage and we were totally denied it was just heartbreaking. >> i thought it was going to be easy. lease cars, purchased cars, i have a perfect credit score. i've never been late on a payment for anything, school loan or any type of business loan. everything has been on time. so i thought it was going to be easy. >> reporter: gone are the days are when you can declare your income and the bank accepted it. so brian had to prove he earned every penny he claimed. but it's not just the self-employed, like brian. >> you want me to sign my name? self-employed, like brian. >> sure. just like the front of the check. >> reporter: this couple of chicago both have good jobs. he's adentist, she's a teacher. it still took them three tries and a year and a half to

refinance their home. refinance their home. >> there's a lot of paperwork you have to go in between. you have to go here, go there, pick this up and you need that stamped and it's like, oh, just a lot of other paper work just to get to this part of the process. >> reporter: in many cases, you can be the most squeaky clean borrower around. ba banks are shy after the free for all. >> the main thing is the abuses of three, four years ago have reverberate and 350e78 are tightening up too much. >> reporter: michael, owner of the lending economy equity now, says with lingering uncertainty about the economy, banks are quick to say no. >> i think it's only natural. they are basically looking at, they woke up from the bubble that happened two and a half and three years ago, up until that time, and they're looking at a house that is worth $500,000. they are concerned it is going to be worth 450, 440, a year or

two from now, and they're making their underwriting decisions based on that. >> so, this estimate, you receive within three business days of us receiving your loan application. >> reporter: brian and suzanne were able to buy their house, but not without jumping through some hoops. mortgage broker dale robin seigle helped them navigate the landscape. landscape. >> she organized me. she asked me how long i've been in business, ran my credit, took me through the steps. she put everything in order. she basically cleaned my credit, i had good credit but i had some things that were outstanding from the past. >> the most perfect of perfect people still, as we say, get, you know, thrown into it and we tell them right up in front that they're going to sign 50, 60 documents before they even get to the closing table, that they're going to have to continuously give us more pay stubs, more bank statements, more explanations throughout the process, and if they understand

that, you know, they just have to work with it, then they do. >> reporter: it's ironic that just as rates have plummeted to levels not seen since the '50s, getting your hands on a loan has gotten harder than ever. if you locked in today, you'd be looking at less than 4.5% for a 30-year fixed loan. compare that to august of 1981, when that same mortgage came with an interest rate of more than 17%. with an interest rate of more so, how do you do your best to qualify for a loan these days? dale seigle has some tips. number one, have your credit in order. number one, have your credit in >> the banks look at a minimum of 620, the better your credit score, the better your interest rate. >> reporter: number two, have a steady income. >> steady employment and look at your employment in the future, are you in a job where you might be let go? which is a big thing now. >> reporter: number three, watch your debt ratio. >> debt to income ratios are much lower now, so, a lot of the

banks cap it at 45%. >> reporter: number four, have a down payment upfront, an extra money in reserve. >> fannie mae requires a minimum of 5% down. so, when you buy a house, it's good if you have your down payment, your closing costss, which you know ahead of time. payment, your closing costss, it could be a couple thousands, 10, 20, they want to see if you have a couple of months left over post closing reserves. >> reporter: number five, be prepared. >> it's a very different world in real estate. values are, i believe, still going down, or could continue to go down. there's a lot of homes on the market. there's foreclosures, and, it's scary, so, i just think the key to everything is just to be educated, take a class, read a book, do something. >> reporter: if your credit's not the best, dale has tips on fixing that, too. >> keep what you owe on a credit card below 50% of your high

credit available. in other words, if you have a visa card that has a high credit of $5,000, never go above $2,500. >> reporter: some question why banks who took taxpayer money in the bailout are now slow to lend that money to people who need it. michael says banks are getting back to traditional standards. >> a lot of concerns about real estate values still going down. and i think that's one of the main factors that drives the type of underwriting guidelines. >> reporter: so, baby is due in jan january. >> yes. >> reporter: they got into that new home just in time. this is vicki mabrey for "nightline" in ft. lee, new jersey. >> just in time, indeed for one family. credit is still hard to come by. our thanks. when we come back, we travel with the richest female athlete in the world for an eye-opening look at her humble beginnings. i'm gonna take allison jenkins to the senior prom

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♪ it's the perfect parfait, with two indulgently rich layers of chocolate and raspberry yogurt and only 100 calories. yoplait delights. get rid of the "or." well, she's the highest paid female athlete in the word, but maria sharapova says her glamorous life owes much to the worst nuclear reactor explosion in history. sharapova grew up in the former soviet union, and for the first time in over a decade, the three-time grand slam champ returns to the place that was once her family's home. in an exclusive report, espn's rachel nichols joined sharapova on her journey back.

>> when everything's destroyed, what grows in its place? >> there has been a nuclear accident in the soviet union. there is speculation in moscow that people were injured and may have died. >> if chernobyl never happened, my life would be very different. i probably would not even be playing tennis. >> reporter: maria sharapova has won three grand slam champions and at 23 years old is the highest paid female athlete on the planet. earning about $20 million a year. she has her own fashion line, endorsement deems and a glamorous life in los angeles.

but the chain reaction that led her here started in a much darker place. a tower of a nuclear reactor on the other side of the world, more than 24 years ago. >> it's crazy to think that i could have been born in the middle of chernobyl. i remember my mom and my dad telling me that it was really chaos. everyone just wanted to leave. >> reporter: maria's parents were living less than 100 miles from the nuclear power plant when on april 26th, 1986, a safety test went horribly wrong, causing an explosion and a deadly cloud of radiation. >> oh, my god. it's just crazy. and people started get panic and

pick up their bag and, if we have chance, just try to escape. >> reporter: yuri and his wife initially stayed, but four months after the disaster, she discovered she was pregnant. as radiation particles drifted into their town and those around them experienced health effects. they decided to flee to western siberia, where in 1987, maria was born. >> my parents took a lot of chances. growing up, i was surrounded by those decision, and i think in a way i learned from that, and it really meant that they wanted me to do something that i loved in my life, that i really loved playing tennis and i couldn't wait to wake up, go out on the court and play. >> reporter: the family moved to the u.s. when maria was 6. she would win wimbledon at 17, but she never forgot the places that shaped her, the area around

chernobyl. the place her family once called home. this summer, maria decided she would return for the first time in 11 years. her first stop, a local hospital, where sharapova talked to doctors about the effects of chernobyl's read yags. more than two decades after the disaster, there's been a 1400% increase in children diagnosed with thyroid cancer. next up, a cultural center. and a tennis clinic. >> you hit the first ball. >> okay. >> here, i'll feed it to you. >> reporter: before her visit, sharapova donated about $300,000 to charity programs here. during her stay, she announced an additional quarter million

would be creadonated to create sports and recreational activities. on her way home, she stopped at an apartment building that her parents lived in. how real is your connection to this place? >> it's very real. it's probably, you know, one of my closest places that i can call home. even though i didn't actually live here steadily, all my family, pretty much, was from here. this is where it all started. that was a big part of my childhood. >> the people remember when she was 2 years old and the lady remember, grab your hairs out. >> i did that to her? >> you did that. you did to her. >> reporter: as sharapova boarded the plane home, she said

she was once again taking a part of this place with her. the young woman whose family fought first out of the shadow of the reactor, then out of the desolation of siberia and the ruins of communist russia, realizes how the chain reaction that set off the explosion after chernobyl set off a chain reaction in her own life. >> it's crazy to think about the what ifs. what if i was never a tennis player. it does cross my mind sometimes. i really don't know what that feels like. i really don't want to know, because i'm really grateful for what i had and what i did and what i became and what i've achieved. >> amazing journey. thanks to espn's e 60 and rachel nichols for that report.

when we come back, we'll go to the front lines in the humanitarian crisis in pakistan, where horrific flooding has submerged much of the country and created tens of millions of homeless people.

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>> announcer: "nightline" continues from new york city with cynthia mcfadden. >> it was clear when the monsoons first hit pakistan three weeks ago that it was a humanitarian crisis in the making, and indeed, since the flooding began, the death toll has reached at least 1,600 people. but aid organizations, many of people. but aid organizations, many of them, have been slow to respond, though not the u.s. government, as jim sciutto reports. >> reporter: traveling the country by helicopter, on foot and sometimes not even to travel at all -- we watched this flood build up just in the last few minutes -- one thing's been clear to us. pakistan was not ready for this. a biblical flood covering a fifth of the country, an area the size of england. it swelled rivers to as much as 20 times their normal size. and still, every day, more rain.

still, the flooding is failing to attract global support close to the scale of the suffering. u.n. is making desperate fleas for $50035 $500 million in aid, for $50035 $500 million in aid, far, only the u.s. and britain are answering the call in force. far, only the u.s. and britain and even they've had trouble delivering on their promises. when we arrived, we tried to fly with the 19 u.s. relief helicopters sent here. but stormy weather kept crews on the ground one day and another and another. major dan rice rushed here from combat in afghanistan. showed us his squadron, going nowhere. >> when i look at the food in there waiting to go, the helicopters, you, your team, eager to go, but you're not able to go, that's frustrating. >> extremely frustrating. we know there's people up there, people that need to get to safety. >> reporter: the break in the weather finally came this weekend. and we took off for the hard-hit swat valley in pakistan's

northwest. it's a stunning landscape, towering peaks and deep gorges. from the air, can you almost forget it's a disaster zone, until you see every bridge is destroyed. on the ground, villages, whose only tie to the outside world is now by helicopter. bahrain, population 40,000, has no power, no clean water, and no roads in or out. during the height of the flooding, the waters came almost as high as this building and the river is still twice its normal size. villages are only now coming to realize how much destroux it left behind. the flooding is leaving behind a trail of disease. we found it painfully ironic, water everywhere, but none of it safe to drink. tens of thousands are now infected. in many areas, all that's standing in the way are charity-run clinics like this one. the health of 15,000 families depending on just a handful of

volunteers. facilities, we had difficulty baring ourselves for too long. the heat is oppressive. the squalor almost palpable. doctors are seeing an outbreak of acute diarrhea. this woman brought her 2-year-old son, worried his fever could be the sign of fever could be the sign of something worse. "i'm getting no help," he said. "i'm in a place where none of us are getting help." the taliban are moving back into areas they were only recently driven out, delivering help where the government is not. and there are fears they will stay. and there are fears they will it's a measure of just how poorly the pakistani government has done, that the u.s., normally about the only thing pakistanis hate more than their own leaders, is winning praise for its relief effort here. those 19 much-needed helicopters, hundreds of tons of food. $76 million in aid. many pack stannies are incensed

at their government seemingly indifferent response. residents in the south blocked a highway in protest. wherever we traveled, deep frustration. i'm jim sciutto for "nightline" in pakistan. >> and a final note, just today, reports of looting and protests over lack of aid is causing despair in large parts of the country. thanks to jim sciutto. when we come back, rod blagojevich, not guilty on 23 of the 24 counts against him. that's the subject of tonight's closing argument. but first, jimmy kimmel with what's coming up next on abc. >> jimmy: thanks, cynthia. tonight, justin long, jeweliest lewis, music from five finger death punch, and the cruel vengeance of an angry justin bieber. "jimmy kimmel live" is next. [ wind howling ] [ male announcer ] it balances you...

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