Classic liberal hypocrisy. Dubbed "Fauxcahontas" by some in the conservative blogosphere due to her fictitious claim of Native American ancestry, Sen. Elizabeth Warren has blasted, among others, GOP nominee Donald Trump for buying homes for profit during the housing crisis. But it turns out she did the exact same thing. For years.
A new report by National Review reveals that Warren bought several homes -- including ones that had gone into foreclosure -- in order to "flip" them for a quick profit.
Of course this would not be problematic if she did not build her political career on vilifying people who've done the same thing.
"She campaigned for the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, intended to shield people from the predations of the mortgage and credit-card industries, among others," writes NR.
"In her 2006 book All Your Worth, co-authored with her daughter, Amelia, Warren lists as a top myth the idea that 'you can make big money buying houses and flipping them quickly.'"
Yet that's precisely what she did. Below are a few examples of Warren's home purchases:
Nearly two years after Veo Vessels died, her daughter, 70-year-old Mary Frances Hickman, decided to sell the home her mother had left to her. A sprawling brick house in Oklahoma City’s historic Highland Park neighborhood, it was built in 1924, just a year after Mary’s birth. Decades later, one of Vessels’ great-grandchildren fondly recalls the wood and tile floors, the fish pond, the butler’s quarters, and the multi-car garage where children played house.
“It was really, really nice,” says Hickman’s granddaughter, Andrea Martin. That’s part of the reason she’s so surprised her grandmother sold the home in 1993 for a mere $30,000. Despite a debilitating stroke, Martin says Hickman remained sharp, and she had always been business-savvy. As an Avon saleswoman, she had at times ranked among the top ten in the country. “So I don’t know why,” Martin says.
“Maybe she just wanted out from underneath it, but to sell it for such a low number — I don’t know. Maybe she got bad advice, maybe she was just tired.” The home’s new owner: Elizabeth Warren, today a Massachusetts senator who has built a political career on denouncing the sort of banking titans and financial sophisticates who make a buck off the little guy.
Five months after purchasing Veo Vessels’ old home, Warren flipped the property, selling it for $115,000 more than she’d paid, according to Oklahoma County Property Assessor records.Warren rose to political prominence in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis as a crusader against big banks and a dispenser of common-sense economic advice. [...]
Warren bought two homes after they’d fallen into foreclosure. And though she spent money fixing up the Hickman home before selling it, records suggest she sold others at a significant profit without making any meaningful upgrades.
The report indicates that Warren made more than $240,000 in profit flipping homes. For more details on each of Warren's home purchases, please read the full report here.
