Mortgage
fraud rampant in Florida
This is the third in an occasional series of reports exploring
costly consumer snares, scams and crime associated with
South Florida's surging real estate market.
Fudging on that loan application may seem innocuous enough:
exaggerating income a little; boosting a credit score; hiding
some down payment help from the lender.
After all, the borrower probably has every intention of
paying the loan.
Unconventional
mortgages can lead to misery
David Moro and his wife stretched their budget to the limit
when they bought their center-hall colonial in 2003. They
took out an interest-only loan, which keeps the payments
low for the first 10 years, but will bump up monthly payments
in the future.
Moro dreads that day.
"What's getting me a little squirrelly is seeing interest
rates go up," said Moro, who works in the music licensing
industry in Lyndhurst. "The reality is when I went
into this mortgage, I didn't fully understand it. -- I'm
not going to be able to make the payments."
Mortgage
lender sparks bid battle
Compass Partners, a New York-based investment company,
made the apparent highest and best bid of $67 million Thursday
for the assets of a mortgage loan fund managed by USA Capital
and a contract to service loans for the bankrupt private
lender.
Bankruptcy Judge Linda Riegle conducted a slow-paced auction
in her courtroom taking bids from three companies, Desert
Capital Real Estate Investment Trust of Henderson, hedge
fund Silver Point Capital of Greenwich, Conn., and Compass.