Novice Real Estate "Tycoon" Duped Into Being Straw Buyer In Flipping Operation; Now Has Ten Homes In Foreclosure

The St. Petersburg Times reports:

• "Jill Jackson, a single mom and apartment renter with an annual take-home pay of about $24,000, managed to go on an incredible real estate buying binge last year. In the span of 10 weeks, she bought 10 properties. She did not put a single penny down, borrowing the price for all 10 by signing for mortgage loans totaling $1.84-million. The investment plan seemed too good to be true. And it was."

The "investment plan" that enabled her to amass her portfolio (now all in foreclosure) in such a short time was presented to her by Investors Outlet, a Tampa company run by William Ondra Joel II, 27, a former $8-an-hour worker at a Tampa mental health center who got into real estate after seven arrests on drug charges. For more, see Home buying spree snaps (A year after a woman bought 10 overpriced properties, she's not the only one hurting).