FBI Makes Mortgage Fraud Arrests, Three Years Too Late

Apologies in advance for the rant. If you're looking for something a little more sober, check out this state worker salary post.

In another example of closing the barn door long after the horse had fled, the FBI arrested an Elk Grove police officer on several counts of mortgage fraud. Turns out, the only thing extraordinary about the case is who the accused fraudster works for:

An Elk Grove police officer allegedly lied on his mortgage and refinance applications to obtain loans with cash-equity totaling tens of thousands of dollars, according to an affidavit in Sacramento's federal court...

Ali Khalil refinanced each of the properties twice within months of the original closings. In each of the four transactions, he would list each property as his only and primary residence, the affidavit states.

He also inflated his income, saying that he earned twice his actual salary, the affidavit states.

Authorities said his false statements "made qualifying for the refinancing easier, and was material to the bank in approving the loan application."

Here are the not-so-juicy loan details:


I'm sorry, but where was the FBI in 2006, 2007, and 2008? Also, while it's easy to lie on a mortgage application, it's just as easy for the bank to verify income. (Tax return, anyone?) Far be it for me to set the FBI's priorities, but what do they hope to accomplish through this prosecution? Maybe they didn't get the news, but the bad guys won! There's even a guy that flaunted his crimes on the internet for years, stole millions, and has yet to be prosecuted. For every Khalil that gets the book thrown at him, there are thousands of equally guilty people that will escape punishment.

Perhaps the FBI should focus on the financial firms that lied to investors and stole billions, rather than some pathetic wanna be "investor" (who happens to be a cop) that lost it all.

California State Worker Salaries

Now that the perpetual California budget crisis is reaching crescendo, the salaries of state government workers are the outrage du jour. Aside from the inexplicable outliers (yes, there is a non-PERS state employee that made over $500,000 last year!), precious little data informs the debate. Well, I'm fresh from having analyzed a state payroll database, and here's a little data for the debate fire:

Total Number of State Workers: 264,933
Total Cumulative Salary For 2008: $17,538,131,186
Average Salary: $66,198
Median Salary: $62,296
Median Statewide Household Income in 2007: $59,948



With the recent 10% salary cuts, the median state worker salary is now lower than the state median household income for 2007. All-in-all, I think state workers are well-compensated, but not overly so. The problems come not from the salaries themselves, but the number of workers.

Sacramento Regional Real Estate Trends for May 23, 2009

I'm experimenting with some new graphing methods, so you might see some strange posts during the next few weeks. One package that looks promising is the javascript package "flot," although converting all the graphs will be a chore. Let me know what you think!

Four County Inventory Levels

Asking Price Levels

Price Inventory Levels