I'll get the quotes speak for themselves:
"Angela Brown of Euclid, a single mother living with little income in a government-subsidized apartment, bought five houses in one day, qualifying for hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans that she has no way of paying off."
"David Crosby of Cleveland, a night-shift postal worker, bought six houses - four in one day - through an identical loan deal that plunged him into a sea of debt."
Those two were the special kind of stupid.
"Brown and Crosby became landlords without knowing what their properties looked like or where they were located. They soon discovered that their so-called income properties were dilapidated money pits, some of them in the poorest sections of Cleveland.
Now Brown, 30, is strapped with $355,000 in notes on a scattering of junk houses, hardly worth half of what she owes on them.
Crosby, 48, is stuck with $483,000 in notes on a collection of urban eyesores, including condemned crack houses. Both face jail time for housing code violations."
Am I the only who thinks that creative financing is getting a little out of hand? How many fools are there who took more debt they can afford to buy something that most people wouldn't let their dog live in?
I also thought it's worth mentioning that the housing bubble costs thousands of dollars in extra property taxes to 'normal' homeowners and hurts those who live on fixed income. That and the inflation created by a small segment of the population using their houses as bottomless money pits (at least while the house prices are going up) to support an otherwise unsustainable lifestyle.
*edit* forgot the link http://www.cleveland.com/cuyahoga/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1128850430291451.xml&coll=2