Is Little Boy David Crisp the new Charles Ponzi? Crisp & Cole now tied to 94 properties in default and $59 million in mortgage loans gone kaput

Gotta love a good Ponzi Scheme. Gotta love a good swindle. Gotta love a good snake oil salesman, promoted by the snake oil company (the NAR). And gotta love it when out of control bankers lend millions to a little shoe shine boy during the greatest financial mania in recorded human history. David Crisp was simply Casey Serin with a much bigger credit line.

And we all know how this one ends....

Here's what the monkey-run NAR had to say about David Crisp in 2005 in their glowing "30 under 30" feature:

Bling is the thing: Crisp insists that his salespeople wear professional attire and be well-groomed. He buys luxury automobiles for his salespeople and has flown clients in private jets to view properties. “Image is key in this market,” he says. “Clients want to feel important and be with a real estate professional who’s successful.”

And of course, here's the report today, which is starting to read more like a police blotter:

On Sept. 10, the Department of Real Estate issued a complaint against Crisp, Cole and three employees, charging them with deceiving lenders to take out $12 million in home loans.

On Sept. 12, FBI and IRS agents searched 13 homes and offices related to the former Crisp & Cole Real Estate firm. Warrants were sealed, but a list belonging to a law enforcement officer listed bank records, appraisal documents and business and financial documents among items to be seized. San Joaquin Appraisals, owned by Kirk “Mark” Newton, was also searched.

As of the third week in September, Crisp, Cole, their companies, family members, employees and associates have defaulted on at least 94 properties. Payments are late on $58.76 million worth of home loans.

But don't forget the NAR's overarching message in this rags to riches to rags to orange jumpsuits story: BLING IS THE THING!!!

Trust the "experts" - there was no housing bubble. It's different this time! All will be fine!

They all sounded so convincing at the time, didn't they HP'ers? The MSM sure thought so. Millions of Desperate Homedebtors sure hoped so. But alas, they were a parade of fools, some corrupt, some stupid, and all wrong.

First, you have the NAR's anti-bubble realtor spin instructions, which are still up on their website:

These downloadable 10-page reports show that the facts simply do not support the possibility of a housing bust -- not for these 135 markets and not for the nation

And The Corrupt David Lereah from January 2006:

"The level of home sales activity is now at a sustainable level, and is likely to pick up a bit in the months ahead."

Then there was the idiot MSN columninst Jim Jubak in June 2005 with this gem:

Why there is no housing bubble. The sky is not falling. Yes, home prices are sky-high, but we really don't have a housing bubble that is anywhere near bursting.

And of course, you have NAR-poodle Nicholas Retsinas at the corrupt Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies boldly proclaiming in 2002:

Bubbles, of course, do burst; but housing is not a bubble akin to tulips or to Enron or other corporate scandals. It is a concrete product -- a place where people live. And as anybody who has sold or bought a house can attest, it is not an easily fungible commodity.

And Dr. James Smith, the dimwitted and corrupt chief economist for the Society of Industrial and Office realtors, pontificated in April 2005:

There Is No Housing Bubble in the USA - There is no evidence of a housing “bubble” in the United States and housing demand should stay strong for years to come.

And finally, Donald Trump's little play thing Kendra Todd:

"You can't go anywhere without hearing people talk about "the real estate bubble." Such talk drives me to distraction, and I'll tell you why. It's because there is no real estate bubble. Bubbles are for bathtubs."

I hope Americans know a fraud, a liar and a con-man next time they see one. The housing bubble sure brought out the bunch of 'em. And some are still at it. But their day is done. It's over.