I'm not sure how old this is but MSM's homepage has a video on Casey Serin today - "The Face of the Mortgage Mess"

Check out Casey's $15k guru CD collection, his murse, and his admission that what he did was illegal..

I'm not sure when this was filmed and it's from some sort of TV show, but it's on the MSN homepage today... Man, I wish that kid was still blogging... And remember, I predicted one day Casey would testify in front of Congress. I still see that day...

Anyone know what ever happened to Casey?


The Face of the Mortgage Mess
We all know the banks screwed up by lending too much cash to borrowers who couldn’t really afford it, but ever wonder just who was qualifying for all that money. Meet Casey Serin.

See ya IndyMac. Shouldn't have made all those "liar's loans". Shouldn't have knowingly enabled rampant mortgage fraud. And oh, call some lawyers.

Gee, we didn't see this one coming, did we HP'ers?

Oh, yeah, I guess we did. Here. And here. And here. And here. And that's just for starters.

You'd have to be a total fool to have money (beyond FDIC) with banks like IndyMac. Or WaMu. Or Countrywide.

Get popcorn. And get ready for frog-marches.

Schumer presses regulators for action to avoid disaster from IndyMac; stock plunges

NEW YORK (Associated Press) - The possible collapse of big mortgage lender IndyMac Bancorp Inc. poses significant financial risks to its borrowers and depositors, and regulators may not be ready to intervene to protect them, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Thursday.

A wave of IndyMac depositors withdrawing their funds could leave IndyMac "in a disastrous financial situation," Schumer said.

Disgusting report on a screwed homedebtor, a foreclosure nightmare and the conmen and sharks now circling in scum central Las Vegas Nevada

Say goodbye to the bankers (and their cars, houses, 2nd homes, vacations, etc). 200,000 banking industry layoffs predicted in the next 18 months

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

When they were all busy lending money to people who couldn't pay it back, when they were all busy falsifying documents in order to earn commissions making Liar's Loans, and when they were all busy gaming the system in order to enrich themselves, I hope the bankers were preparing for this day.

Goodbye bankers. And good riddance. Go find some honest work for a change.

Study: 200,000 banking jobs could disappear in 18 months

The U.S. commercial banking industry could cut 200,000 of its about 2 million jobs over the next 12 to 18 months, according to financial research firm Celent LLC.

The entire financial services sector had a record 153,000 job cuts in all of 2007, according to the job placement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.

Challenger said more than half the job cuts were in the mortgage-lending sector and were concentrated mainly in California and New York.

FLASH: We have our first major mortgage fraud smoking gun: "Zippy Cheats & Tricks"

Hopefully the Oregonian did their homework and verified this document isn't a fake, but assuming it's real, it's one of the first of many REIC smoking guns to be found - once the FBI and SEC do their jobs and start raiding REIC offices nationwide.

And Angelo Mozilo's home of course...

Here's the skinny on "Zippy":

Chase mortgage memo pushes 'Cheats & Tricks' - The bank says it never backed the strategies, which detail how to get an iffy loan approved

A newly surfaced memo from banking giant JPMorgan Chase provides a rare glimpse into the mentality that fueled the mortgage crisis.

The memo's title says it all: "Zippy Cheats & Tricks."

It is a primer on how to get risky mortgage loans approved by Zippy, Chase's in-house automated loan underwriting system. The secret to approval? Inflate the borrowers' income or otherwise falsify their loan application.

Jim Cramer from 2007 - Subprime mortgage blowup will have "no impact", "meaningless", will "not notice". Uh, Jimbo, kinda f*cked up that call, eh?

Anyone else find it strangely odd that in the end, Casey Serin brought down Bear Stearns and the entire worldwide financial system?

Here, have $500,000. Go ahead. Take it. You know you want it. Nah, you don't need a job. Go out, buy a nice house, maybe a Hummer too!

Looking back at it, it was just so incredibly STUPID.

It was stupid for the homedebtor to "buy" a house at a price that made no sense, that they had no chance of keeping

It was stupid for the mortgage brokers to commit obvious mortgage fraud, and game the system for short term gain

It was stupid for realtors and the NAR to destroy their profession with their lies, deception and spin

It was stupid for builders to buy up land at any price and build homes as fast as they could, thinking the Ponzi Scheme would never end

It was stupid for Countrywide and Indymac employees to go along with the scam instead of raising a red flag and blowing a whistle

It was stupid for Fannie and Freddie to buy any Alt-A garbage, exposing the US taxpayer to their stupidity

It was stupid for the mainstream media to cheerlead the housing bubble, when they should have been shouting about the mortgage fraud and stupid prices instead

It was stupid for George Bush to cheerlead housing when prices made no sense with his 'ownership society' Ponzi Scheme promotion

It was stupid for Alan Greespan and Ben Bernanke to do nothing to regulate the lenders as they were mandated to do

It was stupid for the banks, governments and investors who bought the garbage loan CDOs

Bottom line - EVERYONE involved in home buying got stupid. EVERYONE lost their minds. However, unless they're prosecuted, the scamsters and fraudsters will come out ahead. They'll know crime did pay. And they won't be stupid after all.

HousingPANIC Stupid Question of the Day

Should ALL of the Countrywide employees involved in mortgage fraud in any way be investigated and prosecuted, even if they were "just doing what they were told to do" as part of their job?

Or should the lower-level employees be offered amnesty in return for testifying against the managers and executives?

Ruh-roh: Right on schedule, the Alt-A "Liar's Loan" CDOs start tumbling. The big problem? $1 Trillion of Alt-A, vs. only $650 billion of subprime

Man, if the financial world just read the bubble blogs, they wouldn't have all these little "surprises"

Gee, what a shock! The liar's loans ain't gettin' paid back! Who knew! Oh my!

Unreal.

They called them "Liar's Loans" for a reason. One more time - they called them "Liar's Loans" for a reason.

Not only will Liar's Loan King IndyMac go out of business eventually, after getting sued to the moon by the bagholders who bought their garbage, but I hope to see their mortgage-fraud-enabling stock-pumping CEO Michael Perry frog-marched at the FBI's earliest convenience.

Alt-A Mortgage Securities Tumble, Signaling Losses

Securities backed by Alt-A mortgages and other home loans to borrowers with better-than-subprime credit tumbled this month, causing investment funds to unwind or meet margin calls and signaling larger losses for Wall Street.

About $950 billion of Alt-A mortgage securities are outstanding, compared with about $650 billion of subprime securities and $500 billion of prime-jumbo securities

HOLY CRAP! Countrywide Toxic Mortgage reports 33% of all its subprimes loans are now delinquent. Nice work Angelo. Got out of those shares in time.

Angelo Mozilo should be arrested today for mortgage fraud, insider trading, Sarbanes-Oxley violations and, well, for just being the most corrupt and sleazy CEO in the world today.

He knew the loans were bad. He knew making "liar's loans" was illegal. He knew the CDO buyers would come back after his orange ass and sue him. He knew Countrywide would have to eat the loans in the end. He knew he had to dump his shares as fast as he could, since they'd be worth nothing. He knew. And Angelo, got some bad news for ya.

We knew too.

SO WHAT THE HELL IS THE SEC WAITING FOR? ARREST THIS SON OF A BIT*H AND LET'S GET ON WITH IT!

And no way in hell BofA completes this transaction as announced. Unless something really, really, really weird is going on behind the scenes.

Countrywide: 1 in 3 subprime mortgages delinquent

Countrywide Financial Corp, the largest U.S. mortgage lender, on Tuesday said more than one in three subprime mortgages were delinquent at year-end in the $1.48 billion portfolio of home loans it services.

Countrywide said borrowers were delinquent on 33.64 percent of subprime loans it serviced as of December 31, up from 29.08 percent in September. It also said borrowers were at least 90 days late on payments on 17.25 percent of subprime mortgages.

60 Minutes does a housing crash report: House of Cards. Now get ready for jingle mail all across America as the gamblers turn in the keys and run

The MSM is doing what they do best now - reporting the car crash after the car has crashed.

Pretty honest video with all the usual suspects: foreclosures, overgrown lawns, worthless homes in far-flung suburbs, subprime slime, 105% loans, mortgage fraud, people walking away from their houses, etc.

After watching a report like this, what enrages me is the idea of a government bailout, for people "losing their homes" who got "pushed" into subprime loans. Yes, it's unfortunate, and yes, people are being asked to leave the banks' homes that they can't make the payment on, but THEY'RE NOT THEIR HOMES. THEY CAN'T AFFORD THEM. AND NOW THEY SHOULD JUST WALK AWAY.

Nobody got pushed. They got bribed. They committed mortgage fraud. They took the money. And they're not their homes. They never were. And they need to just walk away and rent. And that's what's happening across America today.

Good. Can't happen fast enough.

Get ready for the lawyers: Subprime Lawsuits Piling Up

The Big Housing Scam will keep lawyers busy for a decade. At least John Edwards will have something to do after the race.

The only problem? Getting money out of bankrupt companies like Countrywide and IndyMac, or realtors whose only asset is a box of ramen.

Subprime Lawsuits Piling Up

A wave of lawsuits is beginning to wash over the troubled U.S. mortgage market and the rest of the financial world. American homeowners are suing mortgage lenders. Mortgage lenders are suing Wall Street banks. Wall Street banks are suing loan specialists. And investors are suing everyone.

The legal battles stretch from Main Street to Wall Street and beyond. Homeowners and subprime mortgage lenders are squaring off in dozens of cases that claim some lenders engaged in predatory lending practices and other wrongdoing. Cleveland and Baltimore are pursuing cases against Wall Street banks, saying local residents are suffering because the banks fostered the proliferation of high-risk home loans.

'What strikes me here is that this a tainted system from A to Z,'' said Tamar Frankel, a law professor at Boston University. ''Everybody blames everybody else. If you look at what is being said, there isn't one who doesn't blame another and there is half-truth in everything.''

Do you have any idea how much trouble the realtors, mortgage brokers, lenders, appraisers and mortgage fraudsters have gotten us into?

And to think, it all ties back to stupid f*cking houses. Who would have ever thought.

I sure hope we learned our lesson. This can't happen again. But in some shape or form, it probably will.

Bubbles and manias seem to be ingrained into human nature. Oh, the folly of man. 500 years from now, they'll be reading about this bubble and crash. And they'll all say - "stupid fools - what were they thinking?"

If something good comes of it, it'll be the death of the realtor profession as they know it. And also the end of no-down, no-doc, negative-am, interest-only liar's loan, mortgage-broker-on-commission bullsh*t.

I'm getting impatient. I WANT SUBPOENAS, OFFICE RAIDS AND FROG MARCHES. Don't you?

HousingPANIC Mystery Quote of the Day - guess who said it...

"The stuff I did is technically mortgage fraud, but it's not officially called that until someone prosecutes me and proves that that is indeed mortgage fraud"

- ????, June 2007

Meanwhile, want to know why mortgage fraud ran rampant (and likely still does)? Because nobody is out there prosecuting the perpetrators, including the world's most famous (or infamous) mortgage fraudster.

If everyone thinks they can get away with crime because laws are no longer enforced in the United States, all bets are off. Rape? Murder? Bank Robberies? Hey, why not, because under George Bush's corrupt Justice Department and keystone-cops FBI, the US is obviously no longer a nation of laws.

Just ask the Mystery Quote guy...

Washington Mutual (finally) under SEC investigation for its role in inflated and bogus home appraisals

Cool.

But what the f*ck took so long?

Wasn't it OBVIOUS that corrupt toxic lenders like WaMu, Countrywide, IndyMac and First Fed were systematically and blatantly encouraging and participating in rampant illegal mortgage fraud?

It sure was to HP'ers.

(Note - I'm short WaMu and don't see any way this pig survives, especially when they're found guilty of mortgage fraud and have to buy back all the worthless crap paper they issued. Tilt. And if you have money in a WaMu account, GET IT OUT NOW!!!)

WaMu Says Cooperating with SEC on Home Appraisals

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Washington Mutual said on Thursday it is cooperating with a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry into the handling and reporting of mortgage loans that may have been based on inflated home appraisals.

The SEC is also looking into whether the company, one of the largest U.S. mortgage lenders, properly accounted for its loans in financial disclosures to investors, according to the Journal, which cited people familiar with the situation.

Here's a little blog written by a lady who lost $700,000 speculating during the housing bubble

Unfortunately a lot of financially naive people are getting nailed out there during the housing crash. Here's one of 'em.

Seems like a really nice lady who had no business speculating in real estate and has lost thousands. Hundreds of thousands. Like $700,000. And is now blogging about it on her "overcoming real estate losses" blog. I feel for people like her, but at the same time it was people like this (along with the corrupt REIC on commission who enabled her) who inflated the housing bubble and ruined America.

Be nice HP'ers, and take this blog for a spin. Lots of good tidbits. Here's highlights from her first post from a few months ago. Amazing. And you wonder why the banks are failing. Ponzi Scheme HP'ers. One big Ponzi Scheme.

You Lost How Much??? - The time has come!!

Real estate investors who have lost money need support. I'm hoping that this will be the place to get it. Or, at the very least, whine about your experience and feel better.

My husband and I entered the real estate investment market at the end of 1999 (we are not agents or in any other related fields), when we were 33 years old. At the suggestion of my brother (who didn't enter the market until much later), we used the exploding equity in our house and started buying single family homes in Riverside County of Southern California. We lived in San Diego at the time and couldn't make the numbers work there, so we traveled 45 minutes north up the 15 and landed in Temecula, just over the county line (with houses priced 1/2 of the going rate in San Diego). We didn't know it, but Temecula was on the cusp of booming--and so was our portfolio.

In 2005, we had millions in assets. By then I was having our sixth baby and couldn't manage the houses myself. Our equity had now doubled, but we had a negative cash flow each month.

I'll give all the details in later posts, but the bottom line is that two years later (right about now) we have realized a loss of about $600,000 to $800,000.

Why are people who committed blatant, verifiable and illegal mortgage fraud being labeled as 'victims'?

If they went out and killed someone, and then said "hey, I didn't know murder was a crime", would they be a victim?

All these "victims" that the likes of Jesse Jackson and Chris Dodd are promoting are criminals who knowingly, stupidly and greedily committed mortgage fraud (they were called "liar's loans" for a reason). Instead of expecting a taxpayer-funded bailout, they and their co-conspirators should be expecting a taxpayer-funded FBI agent to come knocking on their door.

If we were a nation of laws that is, and not a nation of "victims". My fear is that we're now the latter, and that's why we're in the mess we are today.

HousingPANIC Stupid Question of the Day

If it had the resources and could, should the US government seek to put all the mortgage fraudsters in jail, while seizing their assets too?

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Mortgage fraud cases have increased "exponentially" and federal investigators expect it to be a high priority area in the coming year, a Federal Bureau of Investigation official said on Thursday.

The FBI has roughly tripled the number of agents in New York over the past year working on cases involving conduct such as fraudulent foreclosure rescue schemes and inflated home appraisals.