The scale of this is incredible: $1.2 billion worth of property

The scale makes me think they actually thought they were legit. Most crooks and almost everybody in the money business knows when you smack it that large, they will come and find you.

As others said, there’s no feeling sorry for anybody in this story. Not even the banks, they’ve known for years that appraisals are largely formalities.

I wonder if one of the changes we’ll see after the credit bubble bursts is banks insisting on using their own appraiser.