BORROWERS BETRAYED PART 1

Ex-convicts active in mortgage fraud

During Florida's housing boom, state regulators allowed thousands of mortgage professionals with criminal r...

BORROWERS BETRAYED PART 2

Thousands with criminal records work unlicensed as loan originators

Gary Kafka, former body builder with a long rap sheet and violent past, wrote millions of dollars in mortga...

BORROWERS BETRAYED PART 3

State let crooked brokers keep working

State regulators caught mortgage professionals breaking the law but allowed them to stay in the business wi...

BORROWERS BETRAYED PART 4

Home loan racket flourished in Florida

A mortgage executive has gone to prison for racketeering, but a former associate in Homestead still sells m...

Case files of brokers

Scott Almeida Application for mortgage broker license Criminal report affidavit ...

BORROWERS BETRAYED PART 1

About the Herald investigation

The Miami Herald spent eight months examining the Office of Financial Regulation, the state agency responsi...

BORROWERS BETRAYED PART 1

Identity theft is no bar to keeping a broker license

BORROWERS BETRAYED PART 1

For license renewals in Florida, no criminal background checks

BORROWERS BETRAYED PART 1

A criminal past, a trail of new victims

A convicted cocaine trafficker with a mortgage broker license ultimately admitted that he fleeced 30 custom...

BORROWERS BETRAYED PART 1

Who's watching the brokers

The Office of Financial Regulation was created by the Florida Legislature to oversee the state's banks and ...

BORROWERS BETRAYED PART 2

States act to license loan originators

Thousands of people with criminal records work as loan originators in Florida. No license needed.

36 states may miss Real ID deadline

While Congress debates national health care legislation that could put new fiscal burdens on the states, th...

Real estate Q&A

Question: I read your article posted online regarding the future of real estate. I noted your comment about...

Neighbors work together to take care of vacant homes

Eric Blount, 51, an accountant at DTE Energy, spent the spring and summer mowing grass at his own yard in D...

Homeowners left in a lurch after mortgage refinancing checks bounce

CHICAGO - In early April, Jeff Franson refinanced his mortgage, switching it from Chase to SecurityNational...

Charm offensive: Seeking success closer to the ground

George E. Marks seems entirely too cheerful for an owner of office developments.

Commercial real estate facing worse days

From his 30th-floor Center City office, William J. Hirschfeld has an in-your-face reminder that all is not ...

Real estate Q&A

Question: What policies do you recommend to keep us out of the types of recessions just experienced in the ...

Real estate woes are all about the money

Mark Noble has battle scars from the last real estate debacle, when he was a developer and borrower in Tyle...

How to spot a commercial real-estate recovery

Exactly when the Philadelphia region's distressed commercial real estate landscape will shed its "Space Ava...

Treasury announces mortgage-modification trial

Nine months ago, the Obama administration offered banks $75 billion in taxpayer money to rework troubled mo...

FHA rule change could benefit condo market

The Federal Housing Administration is giving the condo market something it hasn't had for a while - a littl...