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Investors who lost their life savings to a hard money lender in Nevada County, Nevada, are blaming the DA for not following up on fraud allegations sooner because he had ties to the lender[1]. Investors believe that when Philip Lester, owner of Gold Country Lenders, Inc., started siphoning off their funds that they had invested with him believing he would be making hard money loans or private loans to real estate investors for high interest rates, Nevada County District Attorney Clifford Newell tried to turn a blind eye to the problem because Newell himself owed Lester money. Lester has already forfeited his lending license and admitted to numerous violations of laws designed to protect investors. Newell says he was unaware of false statements made to investors and unable to follow up on complaints given his small staff of nine attorneys..
However, when the housing crisis hit, investors with Lester allege that much of their money just disappeared and not within the bounds of any reasonable losses, either. At Nevada Countys peak of hard money lending, $130 million had been put up for hard money loans. This money was lent to other investors who were hoping to make money from the skyrocketing property values in the area and massively profitable development opportunities[2].
Do you think that this is a case where a lender is being investigated because his deals did not work out, or do you think that someone Lester, Newell or the investors that relied on them are being cast as scapegoats in a much bigger issue?. The problem here is not so much that a real estate investment went bad though many investors in the area lost their life savings but that a fraudulent individual was tied directly to the DA, throwing the entire hard money business under the spotlight and creating a situation in which it seems fairly clear no one could have acted objectively.
political machine has a huge impact (usually bad) on the business of real estate. Few industries are as profoundly impacted by the political machinations in Washington as the real estate industry. Whether it’s old legislation like Jimmy Carter’s Community Reinvestment Act or Barack Obama’s massive mortgage bailouts, the U.S.
every piece of our business is profoundly impacted by politics. Ideally, we could ignore politics. So rather than stick our heads in the sand and ignore reality, readers of the Bryan Ellis Real Estate Letter choose to be informed and prepared. But here at the Bryan Ellis Real Estate Letter, we insist on seeing the world with clarity – including the reality of Washington’s aggressive involvement in every facet of our business, from mortgage lending to real estate sales license; from loan modification regulations to appraisal requirements.
With over 200,000 subscribers – including real estate investors, agents, brokers, appraisers and other real estate professionals – the Bryan Ellis Real Estate Letter is among America’s largest sources of unbiased coverage of politics and public policy for the real estate industry.Bryan Ellis serves as editor in chief for the Bryan Ellis Real Estate Letter and is assisted by an extraordinary staff of writers, researchers and editors who are each real estate experts in their own rite and who assure that the news we report is well researched, factual, and highly relevant to today’s real estate industry.Bryan is very happily married and has two wonderful daughters. Bryan Ellis is an Atlanta-based real estate analyst and publisher of the widely read newsletter “The Bryan Ellis Real Estate Letter”. He makes his home in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia. You can contact the team at the Bryan Ellis Real Estate Letter here.
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