Our thanks to KXTV10 who sent us this update on the continuing Saga of Christopher Warren. Warren confessed and apologized for committing massive mortgage fraud on his company website. He has now apparently left the country on a private jet: [If you have difficulty viewing the embedded version, you can see the video on KXTV10's website here.]
I get the feeling that Warren wasn’t really sorry. If the law ever catches up with him, he will be.
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I think we tend to demonize people like this, as if they are very different and worse in their nature than the rest of us.
But I think there are thousands of Chris Warrens in the real estate and finance industries, and millions of customers who were, not very long ago, looking for a “Chris Warren” to get them into a house that they knew they couldn’t afford.
Ponzi schemes are run by criminals, but their “marks” are always average folks who are seduced into things by their own greed and addictive impulses.
DC-
A relative of mine retired a few years ago and bought a house. She told him “This was my income until January 1, and after the 1st, this is my income.”
When she went to close, the broker had added the two incomes together on the docs so she could qualify. Her response on the matter, “I told him the truth, it’s not my fault he wrote the information down wrong.”
I remember thinking at the time that if he had tacked $50K to her loan amount, she would have refused to sign it. I think a lot of people who consider themselves honest just figured they were “fudging” a little, and that as long as they made the payments, it didn’t matter.
She’s managed the payments, but it’s been a struggle.
When my wife and i bought our home we did everything in her name (for credit reasons….i have since cleaned mine up….but at the time she could get a better rate). She is as honest a person that I know and I like to think i’m a decent guy as well. All we needed was for the underwriter to call her employer and verify that she did work there and had for a while. We then just put a number down for her income. Now if you added mine to hers it was accurate, but i wasn’t on the loan. Again, i don’t think we are bad people, but i knew exactly what we were doing. and my thought process was just what you said twist…..”what does it matter since i know that no matter what, i’ll make those payments.” we have and we will. i don’t want a bailout, or a loan mod, and i don’t care that our value has gone down. it is my family’s home and i know exactly what we did to get it.
AZSaluki-
What you did accurately reflected your income. What happened with my relative’s loan is that it stated that she made more than double her actual salary. I think that’s a little different.
When Mr. Twist and I bought our first house, they didn’t like the documentation for the money we had for our down payment. To make it look better, they had us wire it to my mom, then she had to wire it back stating it was a “gift”.
It wasn’t a “gift”, but the money was ours, so I went ahead and did it.
I don’t think I’m a bad person for doing that either.
Just a guess: the 15k tax credit will be monetized into a down payment on a mortgage and pitched to investors and otherwise unqualified purchasers of homes such that a new albiet short-lived spike in actviity will ocuppy our media for a while. And then…….
Follow up.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2009-02-11-mortgage-fraud-fugitive_N.htm