The 1.2 acre, 3,000-sq.ft. beachside four-bedroom home of Bernie Madoff was recently bought by real estate CEO Steve Roth, former chairman of Vornado Realty Trust.
Real estate fraud has become a common occurrence in our distressed economy. Last April, the FBI uncovered the largest mortgage fraud case ever prosecuted in Southern California. It involved an elaborate con which defrauded over 70 lenders for millions of dollars. Recently, we've seen the 'foreclosure rescue' scams, 'short sale facilitation' scams, and 'loan modification' scams.
Currently in prison, serving a 150 year sentence for one of the largest scams in history, Bernie Madoff sits by watching his assets being sold off one by one in an effort to compensate the victims of his crime. The latest item on the chopping block is his luxury Hamptons beach house. He wasn't a flashy person in his regular life, and this is reflected in his home. There are no tennis courts or guest houses, in fact there isn't even a garage, but the home is ideally located on the beach, close to the pounding surf.
The United States has been on a completely irresponsible fiscal joy ride (some would call it a demolition derby) for many years. Unbridled greed at all levels of the financial markets was unleashed by deregulation of the financial industry and unrealistic mortgage terms. The Madoff & Stanford revelations, the huge cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, partisan politics, etc., indicates how badly we lost our way. As a society, in some way, almost everyone contributed to the fiasco through our collective mindset. This is our wake-up call.
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