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.
• Providing her brother with a loan in 1997 to buy 901 NW 22nd St. for $90,000. He sold it some two years later for $106,000 — an 18 percent increase.
• Giving her brother a mortgage to buy 3836 NW 12th St. in 1997 for $26,000. Nine years later, he unloaded the home for $45,000 — a 73 percent jump.
Herald columnist Howie Carr reported yesterday that Warren and her relatives also profited from two additional Oklahoma City foreclosures — in both cases showing triple-digit percentage gains.
Warren’s campaign issued a statement last night: “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, Warren and her family’s private investments don’t seem to square with her public statements about the latest real estate boom and bust.
“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,” the Democrat wrote on her campaign website, which also decries “a deregulated credit industry (that) squeezed families harder, hawking dangerous mortgages.”
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