No Limits Ladies.

I understand his situation very compassionately. I had bought over 500 homes and flipped them within 1 year. I made the paper and the financial predators attacked and how. I forgot to mentiom my Mentor who taught me alot , especially a life lesson. We flipped the Homes and low n behold he was the Real Estate Agent, Mortgage briker etc... This Guy Got Paid and how. The 500 homes we split I shel;tered the Tax Burden, he said that way i knew i owned the corporation, Shell Company. We solg the Homes and I found the Buyers, made repairs, help bring the Money to closing, Held 2nds etc... In the end the I.R.S. made the most money, oh yeah my partner with Diplomatic Immunity and so on ! The story never ends, I bailed myself out of the trenches of hard Money Loans on 1 year balloons at crazy rates. Long story goes like this, Quitters never win, and Winners never Quit. My mom informed me of the Education I received was priceless, I utilized the Knowledge and offer Life Experience to anyone who needs it.
In the Grand Scheme of things, 500 homes split equals profit from 250 yet Taxed at 36% meant the I.R.S. received the Profits from 100 of the Homes , Now I was utilizing my 150 Homes to pay all closing on the other buyers, tax on the Profits, repairmen for all 500 + the expense of Advertising. The funny thing is I did not become closer or more distant from my goals of Helping 1st Time homebuyers acheive success by being prepared for their Journey down Homeownership row. Casey if Rich dad can not help, which he clearly has a concept, However you need to re-establish a Life goal and reach it. Someone like you and I are not Quitters.

Yeah it looks like the personal finance blog land definitely had a field day with this guy.

Best of luck to him getting back on his feet. I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys talk about.

"I think that's what surprised me the most, is people's lack of compassion, or rather, people's unbridled hatred and desire to see someone fall. Those people should be ashamed of themselves because what goes around comes around. Who knows that they may not be the next to make bad decisions and fall with everyone pointing the finger, shouting insults, and no one to lend a helping hand or kind word."

Perhaps you should take a look at his actions from the viewpoint of those who have no compashion for a person who purchased 8 houses with the intention of selling them to 8 greater fools for a profit. It is his actions and the actions of thousands of others who have created the housing bubble and now the growing illiquid position of real estate. That wil hurt many more than Casey, like thos who now need to sell their home, who now have to drop their prices below those with multiple 'investment' properties who need to get out at any price.

I get no points for being responsible for myself and my family. This idiot gets interviewed by the press, is getting national recognition (in some cases as a victim!) and in the end will probably escape criminal charges and somehow manage to walk away from this disaster of his own creation. Most of the people without compasion know that nobody will be around to pick them up when they fall down.

While I am supportive of Casey and have left him a positive message saying so in the past, I am in agreement with Fred Fry's post above.Also several things have bothered me about Casey and his story and his moderation and rewording of my post which made no sense to me as my message was clear and needed no editing.

I lived where Casey lives for over 9 yrs up until mid 2005 and what he paid for the homes in Sacramento/North Highlands are suspicious to me. It was like the scams I keep hearing about all over the country of people purposely paying over market value with cash back on the side and dummy buyers and then they let the homes go into foreclosure or short sale and the mortgagee is left holding the bag.

Something just wasn't setting right in my gut about his deals and then he wasn't taking any of the good advice that people were offering (which they were, you just noticed all the negative, which was a good portion, but not all the advice - I refer to the Mortgage guy in Salt Lake City "Nigel" who was very helpful, as well as several other posters).

Anyways, he does have a 'gift', but not for real estate. Please direct him to his true calling (marketing? internet? writing?) and keep him out of the real estate arena. You can see by all the attention he is getting that he will be a great success as his story has us all riveted. He just has not shown any RE or financial savvy. And with all his lying and deceit to be rich, it's really difficult for people to believe he has changed. That's why the "Boy who cried wolf" story hunts him.

While I can't say I approve of the guy's actions that got him in the hole (obviously!), he has admitted that he screwed up. In light of that, it is a bit surprising to see so much animosity towards him.

I don't know, somehow it doesn't seem like trying to make a whole bunch of money without any work by taking advantage of other people is really much of a dream. I might have some compassion for him if it weren't so blatantly his fault, through lies and deception.

I am so glad you posted about the lack of compassion that Casey has been treated with. I wrote to him a couple of weeks ago to let him know that while he may have made some very serious mistakes, he can and will get past it. I also commended him for daring to take risks and was bombarded by a slew of negative comments calling me a moron. All I was asking for was for people to keep in mind how they'd want to be treated if they had made such mistakes, but instead I was accused of encouraging illegal behavior. I am a 27 year old entrepreneur trying to accomplish a ton of goals including getting my MBA in Marketing. I have learned so much just reading about Casey's mistakes in real estate. I want to do more real estate deals and soon! I would be so happy if somebody came along and mentored me...

Thank you for being who you are and encouraging growth!

I think part of the reason so much hate has been directed at Casey is because his initial audience was bubble blog readers. I found his site through a post on housing panic.

This exposure has been bad and good for Casey. I don't think the national media would have ever picked up the story without the negative comments. And I admire the way Casey has handled the negative posts. There is no way to persuade these "flying monkey" negative posters their ideas may be wrong. At this point in the housing cycle, nobody can accurately predict the future.

As far as Casey ignoring good advice, consider the situation he's in. Businesses go bankrupt with this kind of debt, let alone a 24 year old individual. A few years ago, I was in a similar situation - not nearly as much debt though. It's really difficult to know what to do. If you've had some success, sudden failure initially paralyzes your ability to make sound judgment. You constantly second guess yourself because you had previously thougt yourself "too smart" to fail.

Casey's decision to publicize his story, at the expense of public perception, was quite possibly the best decision to make. It may even help save him.

Serin rode the bubble blogs to fame precisely because the "bubble heads", as they called us, have been watching valuations depart so eggregiously from fundamentals that we couldn't understand the buyers bidding against us. So we set out to understand what was going on - and what we discovered stunk to high heaven. The cards are stacked against traditional homebuyers trying to get a little slice of the American Dream. Flippers with no money down, have no skin in the game and figure they'll just walk away and let the bank take the loss if things go south. Now things are going South, and I'm seeing some recent homebuyers trying to get short sales to walk away from their 20% down, losing as much as $100k on the deal. The Caseys of the world worked their cash back deals, pushed up comps, drove values higher, and now they're walking away, letting banks - and the banks' investors - take the loss on their short sales.

The situation has destabilized the economy, and the people who are going to get hurt are the honest, hardworking Americans who weren't trying to game the system. How many people will have to postpone retirement when home values overcorrect? How many pensioners, invested in banks because banks are supposedly sound investments, will see their portfolios whipped after this all shakes out? Right here in Casey's backyard, people are already being laid off as the economy corrects. Outside California, how many people lost their homes simply because skyrocketing valuations drove their property taxes higher than they could pay? In Sacramento County, the investors have fled - and people trying to sell their homes have cut prices 10% with no takers.

I have a lot of compassion - but it's for the people who will pay the price for Casey's actions, repeated over and over on a grand scale. I have compassion for Casey's wife, who will pay the price for Casey's actions but reportedly didn't sign on for the risk he put her in. I have compassion for the people who put their dreams on hold when they got priced out of the housing market, and for the people who are losing their jobs and their equity and their financial stability.

The Caseys of the world don't need compassion - they need to stop lying and cheating. Isn't Kiyosaki trying to help the common man have some of the opportunities the wealthy commonly enjoy? How is endorsing dishonesty helping the common folks who just don't have the stomach for playing the game dirty? I would think Kiyosaki would want the liars and the cheats punished, so the common man can have a fair shot at even getting into the game.

Tracy- I hear where you are coming from. I want to clarify that Kiyosaki is neither endorsing or taking Casey under his wing. He has merely agreed to meet with Casey for a bit. He is about everyone having the opportunity- and even the current and past market hasn't priced people out- but all financial decisions and investing require education and responsibility on the part of the buyer. The problems of people who have their retirements tied up in their homes have more to do with lack of personal financial education than the speculators who drove the markets. And many of those speculators are suffering their own consequences. As I said, I do not agree with Casey's tactics- I just want to believe that people who will take responsibility for their actions should get a second chance.

In case you have not heard but the majority of americans wealth is housing. the fall in the stock market in 2001 impacted maybe 50% of households because 50% do not own stocks and they were not impacted. housing impacts over 70% of housholds, so if housing tanks it will impact the economy to a greater extent than the stock market. as far as casey, you have to admit he is a faiure in real estate, just as many were and are failures in stock market investing. This does not mean he would not be great at something else...he could be. the problem is he is looking to get rich quick...and generally it takes hard work to get rich. these flippers driving up housing up 100% in 4 years is nothing to be proud about..I care about that family that can not afford to buy a house now or the family where their rents are going sky high due to condo conversions. Casey, will find a rich dad or someone to take him under their wing and will survive and maybe strive..I wonder how many poor familys will become homeless due to historic high housing prices caused by people like casey?