"Casey Serin, a 24-year-old web programmer with no prior experience in real estate, owes banks 2.2 million dollars after lying on mortgage applications in order to simultaneously buy 8 different houses in different states. He took cash out of the mortgage (applied for larger amounts than the price of the house) and spent the money on living expenses and real-estate seminars. He was expecting the market to go up, it seems.
That's not even the sad part. The sad part is that he still hasn't given up. Casey Serin does not accept defeat. He refuses to declare bankruptcy, or get a job; he still thinks he can make it big in real estate. He went on spending money on seminars. He tried to take out a mortgage on a 9th house. He hasn't failed, you see, he's just had a learning experience.
That's what happens when you refuse to lose hope.
While this behavior may seem to be merely stupid, it also puts me in mind of two Nobel-Prize-winning economists...
...namely Merton and Scholes of Long-Term Capital Management.
While LTCM raked in giant profits over its first three years, in 1998 the inefficiences that LTCM were exploiting had started to vanish—other people knew about the trick, so it stopped working."
http://lesswrong.com/lw/gx/just_lose_hope_already/
12 comments:
Trump might offer him a job. I read somewhere he offers jobs to his pretty graduates.
The banks deserve what they get if they keep giving him money. Unfortunately, they are probably seeking programs from the feds to mitigate their losses.
In a nutshell, that's Donald Trump without his daddy's money.
Hope is a misapplied virtue and an overrated one. It is and should be used in specific places and under certain conditions, say if you get captured by ISIS and are slated for some form of their barbaric treatment and you 'hope' for salvation in some way. That's what hope is for, not hoping you can turn around your stupid adventures in trying to become an AM radio real estate mogul (one of the things I hate about AM radio are all the snake oil that's allowed to be advertised on it from supplements to real estate seminars to day trading).
Does hope even mean anything? Is it actually a good thing at all? If you are in a situation where you are helpless and out of options then you can be a sobbing pile of self-pity or go out with your self-respect and hold your chin up. Either way, I suppose you still have hope, but is it really there, is it a real thing or just a concept? What does it look like when someone really has no hope? Even the guy on the gallows has hope, unless he's an devout atheist, but even he hopes that he will be remembered fondly. Are we ever without hope?
omg windbag, that is so gross :)
My favorite Ben Folds song...lyrics by Nick Hornby.
Actors maintain that the job of acting is not acting but going for the interview. In like way, the job of real estate speculator is not buying and selling property but finding someone to put up the money to buy and sell with.. He found someone to put up the money so he's a successful speculator. Sadly, he committed fraud so he can't just declare bankruptcy and start again. Perhaps he will have to serve time, but if it's less than two years, the game was worth the candle. He has learned how to fill out a mortgage application in a winning way. If he just hangs in there eventually things will break his way.
William, you have a way of seeing the bright side. I've read that the secret of success is to keep trying after each failure.
Windbag, I've never heard of him. The song makes me think of Love Stinks, sung by Adam Sandler in the Wedding Singer.
I heard about Casey Serin and his 8 houses well over 10 years ago when I was a regular reader of The Housing Bubble Blog and Lou Minati so I can't believe the guy is 24 now. I was hoping this would be an update on the guy.
Sorry, I meant to note this is from 2007.
Chickelit, I too read all the housing bubble blogs too. Lou Minatti was local to me here in Houston. I regularly read his blog then he disappeared. There is nothing online from him post 2009.
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