Harsh Foreclosure Critic Elizabeth Warren Reportedly Made a Fortune...'Flipping' Foreclosed Homes

Elizabeth Warren has been plagued throughout her campaign for a Massachusetts Senate seat by what appear to fibs of her own creation.

It began when claimed to be Cherokee, because her "Papa" (pronounced "Papauw") had high cheekbones, and there was "family lore."

She reportedly rode that claim all the way to Harvard, where she was pronounced a "minority professor," when in reality, a genealogist found she is a scant 1/32 Cherokee.

Now, the woman who claims to have created the "intellectual foundation" for Occupy Wall Street-- notorious for its anti-foreclosure actions-- is revealed to have made a small fortune flipping foreclosed homes in the 1990's.

The Boston Herald, which uncovered the findings, explains:

Elizabeth Warren, who has railed against predatory banks and heartless foreclosures, took part in about a dozen Oklahoma real estate deals that netted her and her family hefty profits through maneuvers such as “flipping” properties, records show.

A Herald review has found that the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate rapidly bought and sold homes herself, loaned money at high interest rates to relatives and purchased foreclosed properties at bargain prices.

Land records from Warren’s native Oklahoma City show the Harvard professor was active in the often topsy-turvy real estate market in the 1990s, including:

• Purchasing a foreclosed home at 2725 West Wilshire Boulevard from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for $61,000 in June 1993, then selling it in December 1994 for $95,000 — a 56 percent mark-up in just 18 months.

• Buying a house at 200 NW 16th St. for $30,000 in August 1993, then flipping it for $145,000 — a 383 percent gain after just five months.

• Lending one of her brothers money at 9.5 percent interest to buy a home at 1425 Classen Drive for $35,000 in August 2000. He sold the place three months later for $38,500 — a 10 percent gain in 75 days.

• Providing her brother with financing to buy a $25,000 house at 4301 NW 16th St. in 1994. He sold the property four years later for $42,000, a 68 percent increase.

• Giving her sister-in-law a mortgage in 1996 to buy a $31,000 home at 2621 NW 13th St. Three years later, the sister-in-law sold the place for $45,000 — a 45 percent boost in three years.

And so it continues.

Warren's campaign issued a statement, saying: “Elizabeth and (her husband) Bruce are fortunate to be in a position where they can help their family.  They have been able to help relatives buy their homes and her nephew — a contractor — fix up houses.”

However, the evidence indicates that Elizabeth and Bruce weren't so much lending money to family members, as going into business with them for profit.  This is completely understandable-- unless you have partially built a campaign around the evils of "predatory" banks and the individuals who exploit foreclosures.

Warren's campaign website reads: “We are in the midst of one of the greatest economic crises in our country’s history — a crisis that began one lousy mortgage at a time.”  For this, Warren slams “a deregulated credit industry (that) squeezed families harder, hawking dangerous mortgages.”

Despite her apparent willingness to take advantage of those "dangerous mortgages," Warren won a resounding endorsement from Massachusetts Democrats Saturday to clinch the primary against the incumbent Scott Brown.