OK..OK..I Can't Resist....CASEY SERIN

For those of you that are not familiar with Casey Serin , he is the now infamous poster boy for the current bubble.

By his own admission, "I'm a 24 yr old real estate investor from Sacramento CA. After going to a few seminars I bought 8 houses in 8 months in 4 states with no money down looking to fix 'n flip. I made some mistakes and fell flat on my face with millions in debt and facing foreclosure. Trying to avoid foreclosure, sell quickly, repay everyone, and blog my lessons to help others in trouble."

What he really did is by questionable means, ( some say fraud), used "liar loans", 0 % percent & cash back at closing financing, pumped up appraisals, and more dubious methods to purchase 8 houses in less than a year. Fast forward to 2007 and you know where this is going. Foreclosures, judgments, and possible jail time are all on his plate.

I have refrained from "officially" joining his circus, as it is not directly related to South Florida. However, I decided to change my mind for two reasons.

First, specu-vestors like Casey are part of the reason WHY prices got so crazy. You had naive wannabe millonares with visions of being the next Donald Trump buying multiple properties all across the country. Many of them used "liar loans", and phony appraisals. I have seen my fair share of "cash back at closing!" offers in the newspapers, Craiglist, and Ebay for local properties. One study said as many as 50% of more of purchases in the last two years in South Florida were by investors, NOT owner-occupiers.

Second, although Casey professes to want to 'come clean', and 'pay back every dirty cent', he is quite evasive in providing details, taking or answering advice, and he has resorted to editing and deleting comments that are in contrast to his "spinning." It is my opinion that his blog was primarily to generate Adsense revenue, and when his account was revoked for fraud, the blog is no longer important to him as it can't be used for his benefit.

So, I decided to provide a forum for readers to comment about Casey, unedited. Just keep it clean. No profanity or inappropriate stuff. Hopefully, we can get some clarity and have some fun.