Real Estate Investing: Casey Serin and the Story of a Flipper Gone Wrong

A few months ago I came across the blog of Casey Serin, a 24 year-old real estate flipper. It was great. Here was a guy who got approved for $2.2 million by allegedly committing mortgage fraud. Casey Serin got in at the height of the bubble, acquired at least eight properties. Apparently he was forced to sell three of them either at a small gain or loss and the other five were foreclosed upon. The best part about it was that he started a blog to tell everyone how he became a flipper, including how he was approved for the loans!

Not surprisingly, Casey Serin is no longer blogging. He sold his site, Iamfacingforeclusure.com to raise a little bit of money. The new site owner put up a history of Casey Serin's situation before shutting the blog down.

The amazing thing is that Casey Serin became a bit of a celebrity. He appeared on the Suze Orman show and talked about his situation on Robert Kiyosaki's show. Casey Serin's career as a flipper got profiled by a lot of newspapers, including USA Today. And he became known as the world's most hated blogger.

I love this story for a lot of reasons. Casey Serin's the epitome of stupidity. It really is amazing how quickly he got in over his head. It's also amazing how easy it was for him to get $2.2 million of loans with virtually no income in order to be flipper. He had the potential to make a ton of money if only he would have found some decent properties. This is a great example of how being naïve and inexperienced can either make you or break you. For Casey Serin, he was stupid enough to try to get the loans, got them, and then was many times more stupid on what properties he purchased and when. What if, as a flipper, he would have found some properties that were undervalued, though? There are a lot of them around now that can be turned around. What if he would have been stupid enough to get the loans, but smart enough not to waste the money? That may be asking too much, but I've still got to give Casey Serin credit for having the balls to go after it. Yeah, he committed crimes along the way as a flipper and he is one reason why there is a huge mess right now, but the lenders are probably more culpable than him. Mark my words, this kid is going to be rich one day... somehow. Of course he'll probably be in jail someday too.

So friends, while I don't condone making everyone hate you like Casey Serin did, bloggers can still be like Hollywood celebrities. Bad publicity can be good publicity... and can be great for the bottom line.