The home of the bean and the cod,
Where the Lowells talk to the Cabots,
And the Cabots talk only to God.
Here's a lovely article on Boston (from the Sacramento Bee!!!): Neighborhood swayed by 'liar's loans'.
Upstairs at Victory Chapel Church - a cinderblock bunker converted from a long-ago Ford dealership - the pews are reserved for praising heaven. But downstairs, in a basement rental hall, a pair of women preached of worldly wonders.
At 11 a.m. on alternating Saturdays, they set out rows of folding chairs and spread tables with urns of coffee and boxes of Dunkin' Donuts. And they offered testimony to the bounty of real estate, encouraging their growing flock to buy the wood-frame walk-ups and rowhouses surrounding this workaday stretch of Columbia Road, just down from the OJ Car Wash.
The key was trust, they told the faithful, as the voices of the practicing choir rang through the building.
Do I hear a Halleluia?!?
Still, Valerie Hayes was a little skeptical.
"I really was thinking it would be at least a year before I'd get a mortgage," says Hayes, an executive secretary and mother of two. She was wary of borrowing because she was saddled with her own student loans.
But "on Saturday I went to the seminar," she says. By Sunday, she was preapproved to buy.
Soon after, Hayes did buy. The problem, prosecutors say, is that the women put Hayes and others into homes they couldn't possible afford. They did so by filling their loan applications with details of jobs, paychecks and bank accounts that were all so much fiction.
God wants you to be happy, sister!
Frances Darden dreamed of buying a house. And not just any house.
It would be in Boston, because this was home now. But it would look and feel like her grandparents' place in the South Carolina of her childhood, because that's what home meant.
It would have a backyard for barbecues and a front porch for conversation. Its French doors would usher visitors from living room to dining room. It would not be a grand place, mind you, but thinking about it made Darden feel just grand.
It only took a few weeks for Frances Darden to find her dream house - a two-family set on a corner of Harvard Street with pale yellow siding, a small front porch and another on the back. But could she afford it?
Darden says Roberta Robinson calmly reassured her.
"I have always been about educating the consumer regarding real estate since I hit the scene," Robinson wrote of herself in an advertising directory. "I feel the first step in homeownership is working with an informed client."
Robinson did not return calls and her attorney declined to comment.
When another bidder pulled out of a deal for the house, Darden says Robinson called with more good news.
"She said, 'You have some good credit, girl, because you got approved for two houses,'" Darden recalls.
It only took a few weeks for Frances Darden to find her dream house - a two-family set on a corner of Harvard Street with pale yellow siding, a small front porch and another on the back. But could she afford it?
Darden says Roberta Robinson calmly reassured her.
"I have always been about educating the consumer regarding real estate since I hit the scene," Robinson wrote of herself in an advertising directory. "I feel the first step in homeownership is working with an informed client."
Robinson did not return calls and her attorney declined to comment.
When another bidder pulled out of a deal for the house, Darden says Robinson called with more good news.
"She said, 'You have some good credit, girl, because you got approved for two houses,'" Darden recalls.
God wants you to have two houses, girl!
"How is that possible?" wondered Darden, who says she first told the agents she could afford only $1,500 to $2,000 a month in payments.
It would cost her $7,194 a month.
God will provide, sister!
Mortgage fraud is most visible in the spectacular cases that draw prosecutorial muscle, involving fake buyers, property flipping, vast amounts of money. But that overlooks smaller-scale foul play now costing many subprime borrowers their homes, experts say.
Often it's not considered fraud. It's pushing the envelope. It's a dollop of distortion topped with a measure of creative exaggeration. It's doing whatever it takes.
God wants you to push the envelope. After that, he'll push the foreclosure button.
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