Thousands of miles from the trading floors of global stock markets, an abandoned house in one of Tampa's poorest neighborhoods is an improbable place to learn about why the world's financial system is collapsing.
But if you want to understand how we got into this mess, the stucco house at 4809 N 17th St. isn't a bad place to start.
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Superb reporting. Takes national and global issues of the housing collapse and financial crisis and localizes them. The narrative is interesting and in-depth -- it zooms in to show how such scams were part of the piecemeal breakdown of the credit system. Impressive research, sourcing and detail.
Excellent report linking dozens of home foreclosures in a poor neighborhood of Tampa to one man's fraudulent manipulation of a negligent banking system. This article provides solid factual evidence from multiple sources to document this case study of events leading to our global economic crisis. A textbook example of quality journalism at a local level.
This is a scandal story of drug-dealing house flippers. The finger is pointed at banks and the lack of regulation and oversight, but the investigation here does not succeed in identifying the who and why in the banks and the who and why of the lack of prosecution.
Who was snorting coke at the WaMu parties? Why did bush pull all the FBI investigators of white collar crime and give them jobs looking for terrorists and spying on political opponents? There are fertile avenues for further investigative reporting here.
“Saying there was lax oversight is too kind, there was no oversight,” said Doug Pollock, an expert witness for federal agencies prosecuting fraud. “The ... More »
Hackle-raising account of "house flipping" gone wrong on so many levels, and the mind-numbing hierarchy of enablers up and down the line. Most stunning is the number of parties named who evidently continue to do business in Florida real estate.
In the examples cited, it is challenging to find someone with whom to sympathize. Almost worse than the sleazy deals described, the reader comments below the article can perhaps give an idea of how these frauds continue. The question is, who will pay the price for this? So far, the answer: US taxpayers. Will someone kindly explain just how it is more important to punish and evict, say, an honest foreign worker who happens to be here without papers, than it is to track these ... More »
This is not really news to those of us who live in this part of Florida. Kim and his friends were a little more blatantly fraudulent than most, but this kind of "get rich quick" mentality combined with incredible stupidity on the part of the lenders -- who were really loan brokers, not lenders -- and a total lack of federal oversight are what cause first the housing price runup that priced honest working people out of the real estate market, then led to its collapse. I note that comments from antisocials on this article blame the Community Reinvestment Act and "liberals" who boosted it for our housing and lending problems. I don't know whether these antisocials are stupid, deluded or lying. But around here our big default ... More »
People don't get sworn valuations before putting their money down? I'm surprised. Prosecutions? Well, some indictments but has anyone gone to jail? No one mentioned that the sytem seems to have broken. Good story but where is the depth?
This is disgusting. A simple ride-by the house and these deals would never went threw. While I blame Kim and the rest of the crooks who put these deals together, There is no way in hell these houses are sold and flipped without the knowledge of the bank, or should I say banks, that went through these frauds for nothing but greed!
It seems as if this reporter found something very irregular and tracked this story down to is corrupted roots.
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