Forced Out
A series by Debbie Cenziper and Sarah Cohen of The Washington Post looks at the condo boom in the District of Columbia. Tenants are being displaced as landlords convert apartments to condos using "vacancy exemptions" — sidestepping tenants' approval and avoiding conversion fees that would offset renters' relocation costs. Through the analysis of government documents, housing code complaints and assessor's records, Cenziper and Cohen found "landlords emptied more than 200 buildings from Columbia Heights to Southeast, most of them rent-controlled, thwarting the intent of one of the nation's toughest tenant rights laws with the approval of the city government." The landlords involved made over $328 million while avoiding government fees of over $16 million.
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Seniors targeted in subprime refinancing
Susan Kelleher and Justin Mayo of The Seattle Times looked at how older borrowers and homeowners are targeted for predatory loans. Analysis of over 4,000 loans from Ameriquest Mortgage uncovered the trend of elderly homeowners being targeted for subprime refinancing that they would never be able to repay, resulting in the loss of their home and other assets. The project profiled a woman with Alzheimers who lost $2 million in assets, in part to predatory loans.
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Dallas property values derived from small sampling of sales
Paul Adrian of KDFW-Dallas/Ft. Worth investigated disparities in property taxes set by the Dallas Central Appraisal District. Fox 4 learned that values for neighborhoods are set by home sale data reflecting an average of 3 percent of the properties, while assessors said that 10 percent or more would be ideal. A database of appraisals includes information on the property that was used to set the valuation.

The National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting, a joint program of IRE and the Missouri School of Journalism, helped with the data analysis and mapping for this story.
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Home Sweet Meth Home
In a three-part investigative series, Keli Rabon of WLOX in Biloxi, Miss., revealed that Families may not know that their home used to serve as meth labs. State laws do not require disclosure of a property's history, and standards do not exist to adequately clean up the property after the labs are dismantled. Residue from hazardous chemicals remain throughout the homes.
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No-proof loans fuel foreclosure problems
Dale Kasler, Phillip Reese and Jim Wasserman of The Sacramento Bee examined the impact of stated-income loans in the wave of subprime loans devastating the area's housing market. Analysis of "61,000 Sacramento-area mortgages over two years reveals striking discrepancies — gaps as high as 25 percent — between what homebuyers earned and what was listed on their loan applications." They also found higher gaps in lower income neighborhoods and aggressive use of stated-income loans, which do not require documentation of the borrower's income, in the late phase of the housing boom.
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Scam hits struggling homeowners
A mortgage scam has deceived homeowners in 27 states, including at least 17 in New Jersey. Jason Method of the (Neptune, N.J.) Asbury Park Press investigated the fraud, in which a company contacted homeowners who had been struggling to make their payments. The company promised them a deal: An investor would temporarily buy they property while the homeowners paid rent to live in their own house and bought the property back within two years. But larger loans were taken out on the properties using the names of unsuspecting "straw buyers," third-party investors who were paid to lend their credit scores to help the struggling homeowners.
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More mayhem in the Meadowlands
In an ongoing investigation, Jeff Pillets of The Record in Bergen County, N.J., uncovered how a taxpayer-supported plan to reclaim the North Jersey Meadowlands instead reopened the infamous garbage dumps to millions of cubic yards of contaminated waste. A review of some 10,000 pages of state documents revealed that the site's developers won a string of state government concessions that stripped down or eliminated key environmental safeguards. At the same time, those developers were makings millions in tipping fees for the contaminated waste being brought to the site as a "cap" for the old landfills. Recent stories in the series also trace the political ties behind the deal and the fallout for politicians who initially supported the development.
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Foreclosures: Living in the zone
KSHB's Keith King reported on foreclosure rates in and around Kansas City. Analyzing data from RealtyTrac.com, King mapped all the foreclosures between June 2006 and July 2007 to see what neighborhoods were impacted the most. Foreclosures affected more residents on the Missouri side of the metro area, where there is no court oversight of foreclosures, compared to neighborhoods in Kansas. A searchable database lists foreclosures in the greater Kansas City area through September 2007.The National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting, a joint program of IRE and the Missouri School of Journalism, assisted with the data analysis for this story.
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Neglect plagues property holdings of ex-NBA star
An investigation by The Sacramento Bee's Terri Handy and Phillip Reese shows that former NBA star Kevin Johnson is responsible for a slew of neglected properties in the downtrodden area of Oak Park where his investments have been widely publicized and praised. "Within a two-mile radius, a Bee investigation found, half of the 37 parcels owned by Johnson or companies and organizations he founded have been cited by the city in the past decade, some multiple times. The 73 violations at those Oak Park properties resulted in 42 fines or fees totaling at least $32,080."
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Subprime crunch felt on Jersey Shore
The Asbury Park(N.J.) Press analyzed federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data to report that in Monmouth and Ocean counties subprime lending accounted for one out of five mortgages in 2006, a total of $3.1 billion. Reporter Jason Method found "the income of subprime borrowers was 5 percent lower than those taking out traditional mortgages, yet the subprime borrowers took out loans that were 10 percent larger."
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South Florida feels crunch of exotic loans
Jack Dolan and Matt Haggman of The Miami Herald reported that home buyers in South Florida have been signing so-called toxic mortgages at rates far higher than buyers in other areas of the country. Unlike the well-publicized problems with sub-prime loans, these toxic mortgages are concentrated in some of the nation's most affluent and desirable zip codes, including the celebrity haunts of South Beach and the financial district of Brickell -- the financial center of Latin America.
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Bad loans spread problems across U.S.
Rich Brooks and Constance Mitchell Ford of the Wall Street Journal examine the sad state of the country's mortgage markets, finding evidence to dispel the conventional wisdom that subprime loans mainly were given out to low-income borrowers who can't afford the payments. Instead, the newspaper reports that ". Although the concentration of high-rate loans is higher in poorer communities, the numbers show that high-rate lending also rose sharply in middle-class and wealthier communities." An interactive map accompanying the story shows the number of subprime loans issued between 2004 and 2006.

The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data used in this story was obtained from IRE and NICAR's Database Library.
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Florida faces downturn in real estate, jobs
Florida Today published a three-part report on how the local economic boom has gone bust. "The shifting real estate market has spooked homebuyers, frustrated sellers, stalled new development and trapped some residents with mortgages they can no longer afford." Reporters John McCarthy and Scott Blake, and assistant managing editor Matt Reed examine the trends and the stories of people who years ago sought jobs in construction and real estate but now find themselves out of luck.
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Speculators driving foreclosures in Nevada
Southern Nevada's foreclosure rates are the nations highest, due primarily to investors walking away from their property. "Roughly 85 percent of actual auctions or repossessions of homes from March 1 through Aug. 31 involved properties not occupied by their owners," according to a report by Jeff German, Steve Kanigher and Alex Richards of the Las Vegas Sun. They were able to identify the investor-owned homes from owner-occupied foreclosures using property tax records. The story includes a map of Las Vegas-area properties that have either been auctioned or repossessed since January 2006.
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Critics seek to close tax loophole
Palm Beach Post reporter Jeff Ostrowski reports that "trophy properties" in Florida are changing hands, legally, for $10 and costing the state millions in tax revenue. Commercial property deals are being recorded as "transfers of assets" instead of actual sales. In the case of a $600 million property, 70 cents in taxes were collected as opposed to the $4.2 million which would have been generated by a proper sale. "In a unanimous ruling in 2005, the Florida Supreme Court called the practice of avoiding documentary stamp taxes legitimate, so long as the deals meet a few legal tests. But with state and municipal governments facing a budget squeeze, critics say lawmakers should close the loophole."
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Arizona developer's checkered past
Mark Flatten of the East Valley Tribune in Phoenix completed a series on Jim Rhodes who has become in the most influential developer in Arizona's East Valley. In December of 2006, he purchased over 1,000 acres of state trust land. The $58.6 million purchase gave him the right to "master-plan 7,700 acres in the area and set the tone for development of 275 square miles of state land extending from the eastern edge of Maricopa County to Florence." State officials claim they did not know of Rhodes' checkered past, which includes charges of fraud and theft, prior to the land purchase. The entire series can be viewed here.
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Virginia investment company profits off blight
Meghan Hoyer and Matthew Jones of The Virginian-Pilot investigated the purchase of over 250 houses and lots in depressed areas of cities such as Portsmouth, Norfolk and Newport News by a Virginia Beach-based company and its investors. Five years later, half the properties still sit in disarray with thousands owed in back taxes. "Since forming in late 2001, CM Development has financed its operations largely by selling its properties repeatedly among a growing circle of investors at ever-higher prices. The investors, drawn by the promise of big returns, have taken out larger and larger loans on the houses." They take a look at the investors and the loopholes that allow them to keep cashing in on these blighted properties.
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Sold a Nightmare
A four-part series by Binyamin Appelbaum, Lisa Hammersly Munn and Ted Mellnik of The Charlotte (N.C) Observer profiles Beazer Homes USA and the failure of starter-home neighborhoods in the Charlotte area. As it sold homes and arranged mortgages, the company crossed the line between selling to people who could barely afford homes and selling to people who couldn't. The series features an up-close look at what went wrong in one neighborhood. It also includes an interactive map that allows readers to check foreclosure rates in their neighborhoods.
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Baltimore's ground rent mess
A series by Fred Schulte and June Arney of The (Baltimore) Sun reveals that an archaic law is creating problems for thousands of Baltimore residents. "Baltimore's arcane system of ground rents, widely viewed as a harmless vestige of colonial law, is increasingly being used by some investors to seize homes or extract large fees from people who often are ignorant of the loosely regulated process." They evaluated computer records from the Baltimore City Circuit court, identifying nearly 4,000 lawsuits filed by ground rent holders against homeowners since 2000. Maryland laws seem to favor the ground rent holders. Since 2000, 521 houses have been awarded to the ground rent holders for unpaid or delinquent rent -- an incredibly disproportionate settlement in relationship to the debt owed. As some entrepreneurs use ground rent laws for their own profit, public officials call for reforms.
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Fraudulent real estate company stole millions from unsuspecting buyers
Catherine E. Shoichet of the St. Petersburg Times reports on a bogus real estate company that defrauded unsuspecting buyers of millions. Natalia and Victor Wolf, owners of Sky Development Group, are currently under investigation for real estate fraud; no charges have been filed in the case. The Wolfs apparently fled the country in October and may have pocketed over $20 million from crooked real estate dealings. Allegations against them include taking money and providing forged deeds for property they did not actually own, and accepting money for homes never built or finished.
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Subprime loans cripple minority homeowners
Vikas Bajaj and Ron Nixon of The New York Times looked at the impact of subprime loans on minority homeownership over the past six years. The very loans that allowed for the purchase of a home are now crippling buyers' finances as interest rates inflate, leading to an increase in delinquencies and foreclosures. "Industry officials say the number of subprime borrowers losing their home and encountering distress is growing and sure to increase because there have been so many more mortgages issued in recent years. But they argue that on balance, subprime lending has been beneficial because it has given people who previously did not have access to credit the ability to buy homes."

The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act database can be obtained from the IRE and NICAR Database Library.
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Suspiscious real estate deals in Ohio raise concern
Geoff Dutton of The Columbus Dispatch dissected unusual property deals worth more than $11 million involving Middle Eastern buyers who paid far above the list price on expensive houses. The catch: "the sellers must agree to immediately refund the difference between the asking price and the sale price". Neighbors and real-estate experts fear that the deals, in some of the most affluent subdivisions outside Columbus, are fraudulent. With few people talking, and a limited public paper trail, key details remain a mystery. But some observers fear the worst - that dealmakers might abandon the houses and disappear with the mortgage money, leaving neighbors and lenders to sort out the mess. A lawyer for the central Ohio chapter of the Building Industry Association warned group members in October to steer clear of such deals. Even sellers could be held liable if deals turn out to be fraudulent, he said, reminding builders of the danger of lawsuits or criminal racketeering charges. "This has been a really recent phenomenon," said David Martin, chief executive of Stewart Title, which refused some of the deals. "It's like a whole new industry has formed overnight."
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Florida realtor rakes in profits
Shannon Behnken of the Tampa Tribune reports of real estate fraud in the St. Petersberg, FL area. "With three months' experience, the agent [Dawn L. Molen] who had never listed a home closed her first sale Jan. 27 in a working-class neighborhood. Her buyer paid $45,000 more than the asking price...over the next eight months, the agent found buyers for 35 more homes...Collectively, the homes sold for at least $2 million more than originally listed." Upon closer scrutiny of these sales, it was found that Molen was not reporting all this profit, nor were the sellers seeing it. "It was going to a third party with ties to Molen, soemtimes without the knowledge of the lenders or the sellers. Federal laws require full disclosure to lenders detailing where the money goes." The Tribune's investigation has triggered three separate state agency investigations, including one by the Florida Attorney General's office.
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Property flip costs city
Andrew McIntosh of The Sacramento Bee reports on a real estate transaction by the city of Sacramento which netted an Orange County developer nearly $1 million. In failing to get the details on the property's sale history, the city ended up paying a record price for the land - $218 per square foot when similar properties went for anywhere from $98-145 per square foot and more than twice what the developer originally paid for it.. "Robert Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies, a nonprofit that specializes in political ethics, said city staff should have detailed the property flip -- the Clippingers' recent purchase and potential profit -- for the City Council."
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