Product Description Former subprime lender Richard Bitner once worked in an industry that started out helping disadvantaged customers but collapsed due to greed, lack of financial control and willful ignorance. In Confessions of a Subprime Lender: An Insider's Tale of Greed, Fraud, and Ignorance, he reveals the truth about how the subprime lending business spiraled out of control, pushed home prices to unsustainable levels, and turned unqualified applicants into qualified borrowers through creative financing. Learn about the ways the mortgage industry can be fixed with his twenty suggestions for critical change.
Absolutely worthwile. An industry exposed by an insiderNovember 30, 2008 I really enjoyed reading this book. In an easy-to-read style the author takes the reader on a road down the gory details of the subprime lending industry. Being a novice to the subject it gave me an incredible amount of insight as to the constituents to the current mess America finds itself in. A classic example of human greed unchecked.
Excellent Book of Blame...November 29, 2008 I disagree with some of the critics about this book. I read the original version early this year, and I thought it spelled out very nicely that there was plenty of blame to go around. Virtually everyone connected with the mortgage industry had some blame.
What I think the book leaves out is the role the government played in forcing companies to make "community" loans or bad loans at the risk of being overrun by activists or having the federal government come down on them.
In all, I think this was an easy to read, simple explanation of what went wrong and how we might avoid it in the future.
Now that you've read the demise of the industry, you'll need to either read the section on how to do a short sale workout with your lender in the short sale section of Loren Keim's book How to Sell Your Home in Any Market: 6 Reasons Why Your Home Isn't Selling... and What You Can Do to Fix Them or you'll have to work on re-establishing your credit by picking up a copy of Clyde Goulet's The Survival Guide To Foreclosure: All the information you need to know to survive a foreclosure, restore your credit, and get back into the ranks of home ownership.
Blame all aroundOctober 30, 2008 Well written, informative and authoritative view of the real estate fiasco. There is enough blame to go around from the buyer all the way to the top. Every one in the chain had a hand in the mess. And we'll all have to pay for it!.
Wonderful!October 24, 2008 A wonderful explanation as to how we are in the financial crisis we are in. It was an easy read. I highly recommend it.
An Inside LookOctober 18, 2008 This is the fourth book I have read where greed and avarice equals debacle. Don't we get it yet, or is this just an innate human condition. Richard Bitner takes us on an unbelievable journey through the system that resulted in the subprime implosion. He should know; he worked in the business co-founding the company Kellner Mortgage.
As one reads the book, one gets a better picture of how this debacle is the result of the perfect storm. There is plenty of blame to go around. Here is the list: *The borrowers who should have know better than take on the risks they did. *The brokers who were held accountable to no one but themselves. *The appraisers who inflated property values that lenders accepted. *The lenders who made crazy loans that shouldn't have been made. *The rating agencies that were supposed to do what? *The investment banks who securitized everything into CDO's, CMO's CLO's and who knows what else. *The financial institutions and other investors who purchased this stuff with little understanding of what they were buying. *The government that exercised little or no oversight and inhibited regulatory efforts.
Did I miss something - probably. Nevertheless if you want to delve into the machinations of this morass of "greed, fraud and ignorance" as the title of the book suggests, I would recommend this book.
