clb09
08-19-2009, 02:09 PM
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1915962-3,00.html
It is lawless right now in the Wild West. There's even a real estate agent (and the figures and details are slightly changed here to protect him) whose out-of-town investor demanded that the agent find a way to cover some of the losses he was taking on the $60,000 down payment he'd sunk into a house. So the agent created a separate contract, never shown to the bank, that said the new buyer had to purchase a $60,000 Persian carpet from the seller — a check his mortgage company, which was sucking up hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses on the short sale, would never see. When the buyer — who was happy just to get a deal on the house — asked if the Persian carpet was really worth $60,000, the agent looked at him as if he were insane. "I bought it at Wal-Mart," the agent told him. Now all the friends of the investor who got his $60,000 back are asking the agent to pull the same scam for them. And he's doing it.
Boemio specializes in short selling, in a particularly Vegas way. Basically, she finds clients who owe more on their house than the house is worth (and that's about 60% of homeowners in Las Vegas) and sells them a new house similar to the one they've been living in at half the price they paid for their old house. Then she tells them to stop paying the mortgage on their old place until the bank becomes so fed up that it's willing to let the owner sell the house at a huge loss rather than dragging everyone through foreclosure. Since that takes about nine months, many of the owners even rent out their old house in the interim, pocketing a profit.
In fact, last year Boemio and her new husband did it themselves, paying $279,000 for a house nicer than their old one, which cost nearly twice as much. They stopped making payments on the old one as soon as they signed their new mortgage. "I make people happy all day with foreclosures. Now I want to be happy too," she says. The new house, like so many she deals with, was trashed by the previous owners, who were angry at being foreclosed on. The doorknobs, hinges and copper wiring were stolen, as were the appliances and carpet. The owners even left their dogs behind. (Abandoned pets have become a huge problem for local shelters.) "You couldn't walk into that house without holding your nose to keep you from vomiting," Boemio says. She and her husband had to spend $7,000 on appliances and carpet to qualify for a Fannie Mae loan.
It is lawless right now in the Wild West. There's even a real estate agent (and the figures and details are slightly changed here to protect him) whose out-of-town investor demanded that the agent find a way to cover some of the losses he was taking on the $60,000 down payment he'd sunk into a house. So the agent created a separate contract, never shown to the bank, that said the new buyer had to purchase a $60,000 Persian carpet from the seller — a check his mortgage company, which was sucking up hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses on the short sale, would never see. When the buyer — who was happy just to get a deal on the house — asked if the Persian carpet was really worth $60,000, the agent looked at him as if he were insane. "I bought it at Wal-Mart," the agent told him. Now all the friends of the investor who got his $60,000 back are asking the agent to pull the same scam for them. And he's doing it.
Boemio specializes in short selling, in a particularly Vegas way. Basically, she finds clients who owe more on their house than the house is worth (and that's about 60% of homeowners in Las Vegas) and sells them a new house similar to the one they've been living in at half the price they paid for their old house. Then she tells them to stop paying the mortgage on their old place until the bank becomes so fed up that it's willing to let the owner sell the house at a huge loss rather than dragging everyone through foreclosure. Since that takes about nine months, many of the owners even rent out their old house in the interim, pocketing a profit.
In fact, last year Boemio and her new husband did it themselves, paying $279,000 for a house nicer than their old one, which cost nearly twice as much. They stopped making payments on the old one as soon as they signed their new mortgage. "I make people happy all day with foreclosures. Now I want to be happy too," she says. The new house, like so many she deals with, was trashed by the previous owners, who were angry at being foreclosed on. The doorknobs, hinges and copper wiring were stolen, as were the appliances and carpet. The owners even left their dogs behind. (Abandoned pets have become a huge problem for local shelters.) "You couldn't walk into that house without holding your nose to keep you from vomiting," Boemio says. She and her husband had to spend $7,000 on appliances and carpet to qualify for a Fannie Mae loan.