Miami Herald - "Real estate sales listings are easy targets for abuse" (7-1-07)

"The Multiple Listing Service is a real estate agent's bible. But it has also become a tool for fraud. The MLS includes virtually all properties on the market except those for sale by owner, and it is sometimes used as a guide for pricing homes. But real estate agents say they are sometimes asked to raise the list price of a home. In mortgage fraud cases, that allows a broker to pay the seller at the original list price and keep the rest of the money as cash back at closing. The false sales information means other sellers can end up overpricing houses that then get stuck on the market, and other buyers can end up paying more than they should."

Executive Intelligence Review - "Bear Stearns Funds' Failure Opened the Door to Credit Crash" (7-1-07)

"Major sectors of the world financial system were paralyzed by the failure, two weeks ago, of two Bear Stearns hedge funds, linked to the subprime mortgage and Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS) market. The failure has caused the near-freezing up of the highly risky $2.6 trillion Collateralized Debt Obligations (CODs) market. By June 28, at least five planned bond or IPO issuances had been cancelled, and another billion-dollar hedge fund, Caliber Global Investments, had failed because of MBS losses. The Plunge Protection Committee—officially the President's Working Group on Financial Markets—has worked frantically behind the scenes to try to relieve pressure, first on one crisis, then on another, but the Bear Stearns crisis is merely one part of a shock wave that could splinter the foundations of the world financial system."

Miami Herald - "Appraisers feel heat to inflate property's value" (7-1-07)

"Inflated appraisals can send prices rippling up through neighborhoods and raise property taxes."

OC Register - "The up side of a down market" (7-1-07)

"Tough times in the real estate industry mean booming business for Michael S. Buescher, a Trabuco construction contractor who specializes in cleaning and fixing up repossessed homes. As more property owners fail to refinance or repay their subprime loans, Buescher's pay days are getting bigger and bigger. In Orange County, the number of foreclosures through May hit 1,031 – seven-fold the number a year ago. Default notices soared 121 percent, to 4,520 homes, during the first five months of the year."