Good while it lasted
From Curbed.com blog
By Curbed.com, Tuesday, August 11, 2009.
The Los Angeles Times reports that Beverly Hills real estate agent Kyle Grasso and appraiser Lila Rizk have been convicted of conspiracy and bank fraud.
Via the paper: "From 2000 to 2003, the group pumped up home appraisals and arranged straw purchases of houses in Beverly Hills, Bel-Air and other neighborhoods. After obtaining seven-figure mortgages on many of the properties, the agents and co-conspirators defaulted on the loans, taking millions with them and leaving the banks with houses worth far less than their inflated purchase prices."
Reposted with permission from Curbed.com. Click here to view original post.
Copyright (c) 2009 Curbed.com LLC
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Submitted by Barry Noble on August 16, 2009 - 7:53am.
As a Certified Resiential Appraiser (and Broker) here in the Palm Springs CA area - I read over and over again articles about Appraisers being manipulated by lenders or Brokers, or falsifying reports to get more work (or more money in this case.)
I absolutely love RE appraising and have ben doing it for some 20 years - nearly 18 years down here in the desert resort cities. It was so easy to say "No" to the attempts at manipulating value outcomes, when you could choose to work with the loan brokers who were honest. You just said a firm no to the less than honest to outright crooks - and still made a good living.
Unfortunately with the HVCC - now mostly the Appraisal Management Companies - pick and choose the appraisers and they shy away from the established honest ones to get the cheapest appraiser in town...(thus the least qualified, most of the time... This will open an new can of worms (already has, in many areas) as complaints rise about "bad appraisals", though, when the majority of sales in a given area for the past 6 months has been post foreclosure and short sales, the truth of the continuing lowering of values is hard to blame on Appraisers. But that's for another commentary.
I'm all for it. Route out the crooked brokers, appraisers and lenders - clean out the very small percentage of the industry that gives us, the majority of honest practitioners a bad name to the general public.
Barry Noble www.MyPropertyIsWorth.com
Submitted by Jerzy (George) Szkup on August 16, 2009 - 8:20am.
George Szkup
www.DestinationTucson.biz
Too bad - these guys will now rot in jail - what a waste of great talent - why not to offer them an option: join the CIA!
http://www.DestinationTucson.biz
and http://twitter.com/geoszk