MSNBC: "In housing boom, scammers discover a Golden Age"

Fraud shattering many homeowners’ dreams
In housing boom, scammers discover a Golden Age

By Michael Powell
The Washington Post
Updated: 11:55 p.m. ET July 28, 2005

NEW YORK - For mortgage scammers, deed thieves and property flippers, this is the Golden Age.

The chatter in New York, as it is in Washington, Las Vegas, San Francisco and Miami, is of housing riches quickly realized. Prices have tripled in those cities, and 70 percent of Americans now own a home. But for thousands of working-class and poor Americans, the venture into homeownership has brought misery at the hands of the unscrupulous.

"We've never seen so many schemes and such complexity to the fraud," said Sarah Ludwig of the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project, which has helped lead investigations into predatory lending in New York. "Everyone works to defraud: the broker, the appraiser, the attorney and the inspector. Before a homeowner knows it, they are in way over their heads."

Maria Elena Mateo is one of the victims. The Dominican immigrant wanted only to buy a house with a backyard for her three children and a bedroom for herself. But a lawyer, a real estate agent and an appraiser pressured her into buying an overvalued and uninhabitable home in Brooklyn, according to court papers. She has expended her life savings of $13,000 trying to repair it. "My kids thought their mommy was getting them a house," said Mateo, 41, her tears flowing. "Everything was lies."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8747134/



"For many, the housing boom has been a bust. Suspected major mortgage finance violations reported by financial institutions increased from 4,225 in 2001 to 17,127 last year, and the money lost in such fraud has doubled in the past year."

the only thing that matters in america today -- is making money.
that's the only real value we hold dear -- and if you screw a few people enriching yourself -- well you can hide behind the republicans party skirt and scream that those you screw weren't ''personally responsible'' for their own actions.