First, they made huge commissions loaning you money to buy overpriced real estate. They convinced you that real estate “is a great investment,” and “property values never go down.” Of course, both statements are completely inaccurate, as I first detailed in the 2006 release of America’s Financial Apocalypse.
Janitors were claiming $200,000 annual incomes in order to get approved for mortgages. And most banks didn’t bother to verify these claims. Illegal aliens were buying homes using false documentation. Mortgage reps encouraged prospective home buyers to lie on their applications, insisting that “everyone does it.”
The delusions of easy money to be made from real estate encouraged many Americans to purchase homes they really couldn’t afford because they wanted to maximize their real estate profits.