No Money Down — Your Good Name Is Your Credit!

NO MONEY DOWN — YOUR GOOD NAME IS YOUR CREDIT! For 3 years in Houston, Claymon Trammell pitched “an investment where the straw borrowers would not need any money down, would not be responsible for the monthly payments and would get money for the use of their name and credit.” Any takers? Sure: enough to allow Trammell, his wife, and daughter to swing “purchases” of more than 70 Houston-area homes — 17 in the name of a single repeat customer. There were payment defaults on every home, and most of them wound up in foreclosure, according to the feds. On Tuesday, the family of mortgage-loan officers from Manvel and Katy pled guilty together to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. [FBI]

3 Comment

  • No money down, no problem if you don’t pay and cash back at closing? Sounds like a lot of the legit loans that were made during those years.

  • Ah, I miss the days of Low-Doc, No-Doc, Reverse Equity, and 108% mortgages, those were fun. The Communists… I mean Democrats (Democratic controlled congress) decided that “Everyone should be able to own a house” made that happen.

  • Ah, commonsense, this particular type of scam has been around as long as there have been crooked loan officers.

    And FWIW, the regulatory repeal that allowed it to run really rampant was the brainchild of folks like Phil Gramm and various and sundry other Rs.