The Broker Who Called the US Crisis and Was Ignored The Real News Network go to original October 10, 2010
Michael Blomquist: From 2003 I wrote letters, made calls, even filed a lawsuit but nobody listened. Interview by Greg Gordon, investigative reporter with McClatchy Newspapers DC bureau.
Michael Blomquist: From 2003 I wrote letters, made calls, even filed a lawsuit but nobody listened. • • • Transcript GREG GORDON, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS: I'm Greg Gordon with McClatchy Newspapers. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and former Treasury secretary Henry Paulson, the two men who were at the center of the government's response to the meltdown of 2008, say they couldn't recognize big problems in the housing industry until earlier that year. But a California real estate and mortgage broker says he saw it coming in late 2003. I'm talking now with Michael Blomquist, who is doing business again in California's Silicon Valley, one of the hottest real estate markets in the country during the real estate bubble that led to the crisis. Michael, can you describe what you saw in late 2003? MICHAEL BLOMQUIST, REAL ESTATE BROKER IN SAN JOSE, CA: Throughout the years, I saw a decline in lending standards. What we saw was a huge increase in the amount of stated income [loans], or otherwise known as liar loans. And throughout the years, those had been set up just for self-employed borrowers, with 20 percent down payment, excellent credit, six months of stated income in reserves, many other qualifications where, if there were losses incurred, they would be on the borrower versus the banks or society at whole. Throughout, as securitizations became more popular, these guidelines were tossed out the window, started being provided to wage earners who, really, there was no reason to provide stated incomes to, somebody [whose] income's easily documented on a W-2 [tax form]. So at that time I started to notice that prices were directly correlated to this fraud that was happening and with the stated income, the proliferation of stated income loans. And it was very concerning to me, especially in this area, 'cause we had already seen a huge bubble just based on the dot-com and other issues that can occur in a normal market. But when you introduce the magnitude and frequency of fraud that we saw in 2003, it was a recipe for disaster. GORDON: What did you do when you saw this recipe for disaster developing? BLOMQUIST: I was forced to close down my business. As the broker, I was contractually obligated to repurchase any loans that were fraudulently originated, but yet that became the industry standard. Reps from the big lender could come by, you know, ask if we had any business for them; they'd look at files, and more times than not, they would recommend just throwing out the income documentation, increasing the borrower's stated income by $2,000, $3,000, sometimes $5,000, and that way they could get business. But I was the one who was on the hook legally, not to mention the duties, the responsibilities that I would have to my clients. GORDON: What were those duties, Michael? BLOMQUIST: Well, it's a thing called fiduciary duties, which basically states that just like the attorney-client relationship, that you have a duty to act in your client's best interest. And selling them homes that you knew were predicated on rampant fraud, whose values were predicated on rampant fraud, in my opinion, was a huge breach of that duty. So it made it literally impossible, regardless if you participated in that fraud, to properly represent your clients. GORDON: So you shut your business and you felt that you couldn't do your ethical duty as a real estate agent to sell these homes where this kind of lending shenanigans were going on. Did you advise your friends or your clients on what they should do? BLOMQUIST: Yes. Now, I recommended to most of the people that I knew or that would come through my office to wait to purchase, because those peak values would come down. And in fact the median home price in our area got close to $900,000 at the peak, and essentially cratered to about $450,000, so a cut in half. So, obviously, any of their down payments have been erased, and now they're enslaved to this debt. Many are walking away. In my opinion and experience, there was probably—at least half of all loans that were going on during '05, '06, and even '07 were fraudulent. GORDON: Did your friends listen to you? Did your clients listen? BLOMQUIST: No. The desire to have the American dream of home ownership is huge. Just that and a black market is difficult to overcome, you know, reasoning or logic. But coupled with 10, 15 percent appreciation every year, it's really difficult to talk somebody out of it. So, unfortunately, many of them did, even without my help, would go out and purchase those, and unfortunately, many of them are now in foreclosure. They have families and it's a real mess. GORDON: So I understand that you started writing letters to people in government to try to warn them what was coming. BLOMQUIST: Yes. Now, I was writing the regulators or the banking regulators at the OCS, the Federal Reserve, the OCC [Office of the Comptroller of the Currency], as well as different representatives here locally—Senator Feinstein, [inaudible] and many others—because not only—you know, for me personally, I knew this was going to be a huge mess, but as a competitor it was impossible to compete in a marketplace like that and still uphold your legal duties, your fiduciary duties to your clients. And I know some people would probably, you know, roll their eyes at that, but look at the damage that this would do to somebody. I think it's much more polite to punch somebody in the face than to have recommended and pushed, you know, people into these homes knowing that they were so grossly and fraudulently inflated. GORDON: Michael, in 2007 you took another step that is quite extraordinary. And I guess I should back-step briefly to say that while you were sidelined, you weren't getting any income from your business, and you saw this crash coming, so you actually started betting against some of the major players in the lending market, actually buying puts or options, betting that their stock would go down. And yet the crash didn't come. So you lost on that, didn't you? BLOMQUIST: Oh, I think a lot of the loss, at least from a legal standpoint, is correctly tied to securities fraud, as well as unjust enrichment. There's—many of these CEOs clearly knew what was going on while they were selling out of their shares, doing company buybacks, doing lots of things that the regulators should have probably never let happen. GORDON: So in 2007, in the summer of 2007, you actually filed a suit charging some of the top players in this whole subprime industry, from some of the lenders like Washington Mutual all the way to Wall Street, including Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, and I believe Bear Stearns, even—you sued all these big players. And yet the top government officials were not even zeroing in on this housing meltdown yet. Do you have a thought about that? You kind of laid it out in—a lot of it, what you thought was happening, in your lawsuit. Do you have a thought about how you could see this and they couldn't? BLOMQUIST: Well, most definitely. I felt like I was living in the Twilight Zone back in 2003 and '04 when this really started taking off. I think Silicon Valley in general is sort of the—for housing and many other parts of industry, at the forefront, and we can predict and see what happens there. But it just blew me away that there were so many other players that were involved in this and turning a blind eye to it. And what's even more frustrating now is that we're still trying to do everything to maintain these inflated prices, which is going to be an extremely costly venture for us. I think there's certain protections that should be made to homeowners. Obviously, this could turn into a huge social issue, or already has, with the amount of homelessness and with the foreclosures. But it's really unfair to those who did play by the game then to have to share the burden, the expense of this, or actually, you know, bear the entire burden. So we really need to restore rule of law, go after, convict, at least indict, let these people go through our system of justice. GORDON: That was Michael Blomquist, a real estate and mortgage broker from San Jose, California, who saw it all coming but couldn't get anyone to listen. I'm Greg Gordon with McClatchy Newspapers. End of Transcript DISCLAIMER: Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.
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