Random Thoughts

Casey Serin is a 24 year old from Sacramento, California who thought he could be a real estate investor. Investing without money, or skills, can be done, but it’s difficult and takes many years to become established and profitable. Casey Serin thought he could spend upwards of $30,000 on real estate seminar materials, get No-Doc loans and become a player almost instantly. What qualified him for this venture? He owned a condo that appreciated in the year before he sold it.

So how do you lose 2.2 million in real estate? Casey Serin did it by buying eight properties in 4 different states, some of them unseen, virtually all of them with some amount of cashback to him from the sellers. The loans were “stated income” loans, all obtained within a short time frame so individual lenders would not be aware of other lender’s loans.

How do you make a bad thing worse? Casey Serin started a blog to talk about his real estate and life problems in September, 2006. I am Facing Foreclosure is his blog, but it’s changed quite a bit from when it was originally started.  Because Casey Serin does not appear to be too bright, and continually makes the worst choice possible in any given situation, his blog has become a place where most of the commenters are there to heap ridicule and scorn on poor little Casey.  Current comments from Casey seem to indicate that he now feels it’s the lenders fault that he lied on his income, took illegal cash back, lied about owner occupancy and did not disclose his other debt.  It’s pretty easy to find yourself thinking that Casey Serin is a manipulative con-man.

So what did this adventure cost him?  Casey has said he’s going to shut the blog down on Aug. 3rd, although he’s said it before and actually shut it down a couple of different times.  But it comes back, just like roaches and weeds.
He’s said the reason for the shut down is because his family wishes it.  His family, including his mother who apparently co-signed for some of Casey’s debt, and his wife who is now separated from Casey.  He still has no regular income, Mom’s on the hook for some of his debt, his wife seems to want nothing to do with him and he won’t have his blog.  All that in less than 12 months.  His biggest success in life seems to be digging the biggest hole imaginable.

When I read various stories/posts about people facing foreclosure, I never read anything remotely like the Casey Serin story.  It’s usually about someone facing hardship(s) and looking for a little direction.  His saga is really about wanting to be a businessman so badly that he’s destroyed the relationships that are most important in life.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 23rd, 2007 at 3:45 pm and is filed under Stupid Things. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.