Real Estate Bubble Poster Child

From the SF Gate:

A would-be real estate mogul follows boom tips straight to bust

Real estate, also a world where appearances often trump content, operates according to a similar couching of reality. “Putting together” a loan package, for instance, or “writing up” an offer or “leveraging” your investment — all these practices have their customary manipulations that many insiders give the nod to — even when the practices are illegal, unethical or sometimes just stupid.

So when some loudmouth neophyte comes along with the sordid blow-by-blow of his real estate dealings — from the “get real estate quick” seminars to the credit card-funded down payments, the stated income loans (a.k.a. “liar loans”) to the over-leveraged portfolio, all collapsing in multiple foreclosures — it’s a confession worth listening to.

Welcome to the world according to Casey Serin, a 24-year-old real estate investor and author of the self-flagellating blog Iamfacingforeclosure.com. If Robert Kiyosaki was the pin-up patriarch for the real estate boom, Casey must be the poster child for its fall.
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What does Serin tell us about his situation? Basically everything. The ins and outs of his deals, how much he paid, what went wrong and how he is now going begging to the banks for approval to do a short sale (to avoid foreclosure by selling the houses at less than the amount of the debt). He expresses worry about whether he will go to jail for mortgage fraud and posts the distress letters he’s written to his lenders. He even explains his strategies for avoiding creditors’ nagging phone calls.

What Serin reveals about himself is that he’s a sucker for every real estate myth that the industry has been feeding us for the past 10 years: that the market will always go up, that if you buy at a discount you’re safe from financial risk, that gurus are doling out useful advice for the beginning real estate investor — and that if you make enough deals, you’re sure to come out ahead.