Homewreckers: How a Gang of Wall Street Kingpins, Hedge Fund Magnates, Crooked Banks, and Vulture Capitalists Suckered Millions Out of Their Homes and Demolished the American Dream

I rate this book three stars as the book does not tell the complete story. I found the book worth my time but there are better books about the subject available such as the Big Short and Chain of title.I am a Real Estate Broker that specializes in selling bank owned homes . Over the past 30 years I have sold 1000's of repossessed homes for banks, loan servicers, savings and loans, and private mortgage insurance companies.There is little mention in the book of personal responsibility for those who obtained home loans. There is no mention of those who took out a home loan, obtained equity lines, and then incurred huge debt obligations and then bought another home and let the old house with the bloated debt obligation go to foreclosure. This was a common occurrence. A countless amount of foreclosures because those who could make the payment walked away as it was easy to do so when the house was viewed as being over encumbered. It is a common requirement in the loan documents to show payment schedules, all one has to do is read what they are signing. If a borrower obtained a loan that had rate adjustments and other terms that were clearly stated, why is it always the fault on someone else when there was a default on the loan ?There is much discussed about discrimination but not mention of how Fico scores were used.in 2009 I was managing and marketing close to 1000 listings of REO's, which means real estate owned by entities. If someone has told me that Donald Trump would be president some day i would have laughed. Much of what the author mentioned in the book happened under Obama and Bush. Most of the foreclosures were through the system by the time Trump became president. The Clinton and Bush administrations made a big push to increase home ownership. To increase home ownership rates loan requirements were often relaxed. Trump has had very little to do with the story but the author tries to make him out as the chief villain among the politicians.There was one ridiculous story in the book about how a bank turned off the water and electricity. I have never been asked to shut of utilities on an occupied house. The RE agents typically manage the utilities for their client. Once the house goes to foreclosure and the occupants do not pay the utility bills then the end result is that services are shut off by the utility providers for nonpayment . Once again in the book this problem is shown to be the fault of the banks with no responsibility for those who are living in a house after it is lost to foreclosure, a house that they do not own and have no legal right to be there.

NPR just interviewed the author of this book (Oct 17th). The information in the title alone has been around for many years, but nothing has changed! I hope the NPR interview was heard by millions so that this critical information can change the future. I've not purchased or read the book yet and I will, but just had to comment on the important, nay, the critical information everyone should be angry about.

If you have seen the movie or read the book "The Big Short" you need to read this book also. If not you still need to read this book it is very informative. The main focus of this book is the housing bubble and collapse of the banks and the housing market around 2007 and 2008. This book should make you mad. I will not go in to a lot of detail because I feel it will give a lot of the details. But I will say I cannot believe how our government gives things away. This is not a one sided political that finds fault with one political party as it finds fault with many different presidents including the last two administrations. It does cover a lot of the individuals that are advising or surrounding our current President. And I thought he drained the swamp after reading this it makes you wonder. Every citizen should read this book.I received an ARC from Netgalley

This book is essentially about the bursting of the housing bubble and how a few billionaires aided and abetted by Bush, Obama and Trump, bought up millions of houses, foreclosed on the owners in violations of the terms the government set for selling them for pennies on the dollar and either flipped them for huge profits or rented them for ever increasing rents. This book infuriated me as it should any reader. It just points out the incredible level of corruption rampant in America. Sadly we keep electing presidents, congress-people and senators who are in the pockets of the big banks, billionaires, hedge fund managers etc. who have turned America in to a kakistocracy.

After hearing the author on NPR’s REVEAL, an excellent podcast I was outraged yet again. I lost my home to country wide and probably Indymac bank. The US government was complicit in Americans losing their homes by the thousands. They would not refinance the subprime loans!! Some folks saved, borrowed ate beans for months to save enough to buy a home. It’s HOMEWRECKERS lays it all out. The whole crooked scheme. There are no words for what they did. Here’s one CRIMINALLY LIABLE!

Excellent investigative journalism. Information that is at once depressing because of the revelation of betrayal by our own government helping a few to suppress not only the advancement of the working class and their day to day survival , but yet information needed in order to effect any change.

The Wolves are truly in the Whitehouse and they are pouncing on the future of this country with no concern other than enriching themselves. It is truly amazing that so many of our fellow Citizens can be so blind to what is happening.

How the poor suffered after the 2008 financial crisis. Millions of people in America lost their savings, and many also lost their homes. We are right in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic and a new economic recession is all but certain. This is the time to read books like Glantz’s – especially if you are an American. The tragic part is that those American who need most to read this book may not have the money to buy it, or the time to read it. Glantz explains how a handful of avaricious capitalists (from the top 1% of America) took advantage of the 2008 financial crisis to enrich themselves further while impoverishing the poor even more. Glantz also points the finger at these rich as having a hand in creating the financial crisis in the first place. Who are these people? The main characters are Steve Mnuchin (now Secretary of the Treasury under Trump, Joseph Otting, John Thain, Tom Barrack, Steve Scharzmann, Jamie Dimon, and, of course, Donald Trump. It is incredible how so many of these were linked to Goldman Sachs. Some of them, like Thain and Mnuchin, not only had a bad record of running companies to the ground, but were paid handsomely by way of severance packages. They up around $300,000,000, some even more, and yet none of them have shown any empathy to the poor whose homes they bought on the cheap, and eventually, evicted. Who are these poor? The figures are in the book, but Glantz takes a few of these families, and tells their stories in detail. He shows, for example, how the Dickersons, a white family, came earned their house, only to lose it in a scam product called ‘the reverse mortgage’. The story of the black family of the Butlers follows the same tragic path, only that they lost their home to a different parasite. What is intriguing is the manner and the mode of operation that people like Mnuchin and Barrack performed. Glantz hints very strongly that laws may have been breached, but that aside, the gross immorality, including hypocrisy, is plain from the book. It is depressing to read to the end, but you may be glad to have done so because you will see the hope that Glantz tries to purvey. He says that ‘writing this book has been an act of optimism’. He also goes on to say that ‘reading this book is an act of optimism’. I hope to extend that optimism by writing this review.

Aaron Glantz has written a most informative and highly readable account of a most unfortunate period of home ownership where property ownership was seriously put at seemingly insurmountable difficulty by the legislators acquiescence of 'Reverse Mortgages'. The author tracks the financial and emotional woes of a number of folk caught up in this scandal caused by lack of support from their politicians. It is a most sorry tale that amazes the reader.By a like token the role of Stephen Mnuchin, USA Treasury Secretary is beyond comprehension. Prior to his government appointment he headed One West, the financial conglomerate that was a prime mover in the financial repression of many home owners a good number of whom clamoured for criminal charges to be made against both West Bank and Muuchin. Perhaps Donald Trump when making the Treasury Secretary appointment did so on the old adage of 'set a thief to catch a .....'.This is a very good book, an exceedingly well researched and compiled book that tells a very poignant and disturbing true story.