Hi Chrispy, it is hard to say what happened in each transaction because the Fox news team didn’t go into the details.

So how did this happen? Well again, in all real estate transactions the buck stops with the broker. On the buyers side Sulieman was the broker. He handled both the financing and the real estate duties for the buyers.

I have stated before that I do real estate and only real estate. I believe that doing loans and real estate is conflicting, (although lucrative for the broker). Also I am not sure if sdrealtor would agree with me, but when the other broker in transactions I am involved with is a mortgage broker, I usually end up doing more work because in general they do not do diligent work. Frequently the representation they provide is poor at best. That is a topic for another post…

So Chrispy you asked about the other broker, the sellers broker. Well what do you propose that broker should have done? If all the paperwork was in place, and escrow proceeds smoothly what can be done? I have had transactions where I never met the other agents principals. Also it is not common practice for me as a listing agent to contact the buyers personally and verify that they indeed are buying the home. So if all the docs are in place, and things do not lag in escrow, this sort of stuff can happen.

Is there a higher power in place? Well yes there is the DRE however, again, this is fraud that was perpetrated, not a violation of DRE law. It is not any different then people stealing your identity and spending 20k on a shopping spree.

As you said though Chrispy, the people that got defrauded didn’t look like the sharpest tools in the shed.