Miami Condo The Poster Child For Cash Back Mortgage Fraud Scams

In Miami, Florida, Reuters reports:

• At first glance, the 43-story building in Miami's international banking district seems little different from other high-rise condominiums overlooking the turquoise waters of Biscayne Bay. But the 643-unit condo known as the Club at Brickell is a leader in mortgage foreclosures and it appears also to stand at ground zero in a blizzard of fraud that may lie behind many of the failed loans threatening to bury the U.S. property market.

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• The Club at Brickell has the highest current number of foreclosure proceedings involving any single south Florida property. [...] Doug Dewitt, a real estate broker contracted to work with several lenders on the valuation and disposal of foreclosed properties, said nearly 70 percent of the sales or closings at the Club over the last 18 months were questionable. That works out to more than 200 possibly shady deals in a single building, he said. The dubious transactions all fit a pattern that [Glenn Theobald, head of a mortgage fraud task force formed in south Florida's Miami-Dade County ] said should trigger "bells and whistles" for law enforcement anywhere -- time and time again properties that failed to sell for months when listed at around $450,000 were pulled from the market and then suddenly sold for more than $800,000.

For more, see Miami condo at ground zero in mortgage fraud.

See also, Buying In Brickell? Proceed At Own Risk (Report Says Brickell Condo Ground Zero For Mortgage Fraud, Foreclosures).

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