The Herald-Tribune has spent the last year investigating house sales fraud in Florida, and has spent this week publishing their discoveries. In what is currently a 3-part series, they discuss how home prices were arbitrarily inflated by crooked real estate developers.
Unscrupulous property flippers would buy houses or condos, then drive up the price in a few days or weeks by selling it to someone they knew. Buyers used the inflated price to get bank loans for more than the property was worth, leaving money for flippers to split as profit.
They’ve reviewed nearly 19 million Florida real estate transactions to compile an impressive infographic (a piece of which is shown above) plotting flips over the state, separating the data by county, by cluster, and adjusting for population. While most of these developers will never be prosecuted (simply too many to chase down), hopefully they’ll at least never be looked at the same way again by banks and customers.
via ‘Flip that house’ fraud cost billions, Flippers’ Toll: On Gulf Coast, half a billion in defaults, and The King of the Sarasota Flip
