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Let me begin by stating that I am a former Mortgage Professional, I left the business a few years ago, like many of my colleagues because we saw the writing on the wall.

During the years between 2001 - 2005, the mortgage industry saw a huge influx of people that wanted to become "Loan Officers and Mortgage Brokers". Sadly, these folks had very little training, little to no knowledge about the housing market, and frankly didn't care. These are the people that got into the mortgage business with the "get rich quick mentality". They along with their clients (borrowers) often committed fraud to obtain financing that both knew would be difficult if not impossible to pay back.

Let me explain, we all have seen the "crash "of the housing market, which has caused a significant hardship to many homeowners that played by the rules. The homeowners that bought home within their means are the TRUE VICTIMS.

I am going to be quite frank here, my assessment will probably anger some, but it's ok, sometimes the truth hurts. While everyone is busy pointing fingers at the government, the Federal Reserve, Wall Street , lenders and every other faceless large corporation, no one has touched on the responsibility of borrowers. I guess it's easier to blame everyone else.

I am not denying that there was a lot of predatory lending happening, of course there were companies that misled, tricked and sometimes coerced borrowers into taking out a home loan, charging excessive costs, over-inflating appraisals, making it difficult if not impossible to refinance into another loan, and locking borrowers into these high cost loans with ridiculous prepayment penalties. In fact, Ameriquest was known to be the biggest predatory lender out there. BUT there were predatory borrowers as well.

Now, I know that I just ruffled some feathers; many may be thinking what in the world is a predatory borrower? Let me explain, a predatory borrower is someone that secures financing and purchased homes with little money down, with perhaps no income verification, and at debt levels they knew they could not afford.

While lenders extended financing and gave borrowers who may not previously been able to own part of the "American Dream" an opportunity to do so, offering low interest rates, liberal mortgage products including 100% financing, no income verification loans, and even went so far and provided financing to those that had poor credit, in order to give them a "second chance". In return, many lenders who thought

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