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GOOD READS EXPAND YOUR SKILLS, GAIN INSIGHT, AND GET INSPIRED BY OUR TOP PICKS. How to Commit Short Sale Fraud … and Get Away with It By Monique Bryher The amounts of money involved in incidents of short sale fraud are staggering. Perhaps even more detrimental is the effect short sale fraud has on surrounding homes and neighbors who see their equity stripped away as fraudsters distort local property values and turn a hefty profit in the process. Licensed real estate broker Monique Bryher calls it the real estate fraud of this decade. Her e-book, How to Commit Short Sale Fraud … and Get Away with It, is an exposé into this darker side of real estate and explores the social and economic implications of short sale, REO, and real estate fraud in general. It offers practical, costeffective strategies for combating such schemes. Bryher sells conventional and distressed real estate in Los Angeles. She is also founder and publisher of the California Real Estate Fraud Report and provides expert consulting in real estate fraud litigation. Her book has been hailed as a "straightforward account of the dysfunction sweeping the U.S. real estate market by an industry veteran who clearly knows her stuff." How to Commit Short Sale Fraud is available on Amazon for Kindle and Smashwords for iPad. 22 Agents Guide to REO: How to Start, Fund, Manage, Grow, Protect and Dispose of a REO Business By Clifford L. Roe and Rebekah Z. Moorehead When Cliff Roe joined the world of REO, he searched for any type of information that could serve as a step-by-step guide for building a successful REO business. Unable to find a definitive resource, Roe with the help of his manager, Rebekah Moorehead, wrote his own no-nonsense guide to becoming a qualified REO broker or agent. In 2010, the pair attended an REO conference where they acquired 93 assignments. All were vacant and in need of lock changes, cleanouts, and broker price opinions (BPOs) in short time frames. Within 90 days, they received a total of 222 assignments from their network of conference connections. Agents Guide to REO explains how a prepared and well-trained staff can manage a scenario like this or, conversely, how it can cripple a business. Roe and Moorehead cover such issues as startup capital, hiring, compensation structures, protecting client and contact information, and non-compete agreements with bonus sections on short sales and disaster recovery. Available at NIREB.com. Financing Failure: A Century of Bailouts By Vern McKinley In the economic crisis, no issue aroused stronger emotions than the mega-trillion-dollar bailouts of large financial firms. The standard narrative is one of necessity and fear, claiming the government must have greater authority to respond to such crises or we will all face terrible consequences. In Financing Failure, Vern McKinley examines the policy decisions behind the bailouts and reveals the untold story of the government's response to the nation's economic decline. He explores how the latest financial crisis relates to a long history of intervention by the U.S. government. Based on new revelations from documents uncovered through the Freedom of Information Act, he scrutinizes decisions made by the Treasury, Federal Reserve, and FDIC, tying them to the choices made by policymakers in the 1930s and 1980s. McKinley concludes the genesis of financial crises is government itself, with the roots of the most recent recession grounded in federal mandates that expanded homeownership, and he asserts government agencies withheld the truth from the public regarding their response to crises. McKinley's Financing Failure brings transparency to government bailouts, new and old. Campaign 2012: Twelve Independent Ideas for Improving American Public Policy Edited by Benjamin Wittes Campaign 2012: Twelve Independent Ideas for Improving American Public Policy looks at the questions facing White House hopefuls in 2012 and the challenges that await the nation's next president. Edited by Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, the book presents authoritative analyses of a dozen key policy issues currently testing the nation— including domestic economic growth, the budget deficit, housing, and reformation of government institutions—each authored by Brookings scholars specializing in the respective area. Campaign 2012 is the capstone of the Brookings Institution's Campaign 2012 Project, a major nationwide initiative spearheaded by Wittes that aims to provide American voters with ideas and information related to the nation's political landscape as opposed to the polls and sound bites that typically dominate public discussions about the presidential campaign. This wide-ranging survey of national policy in America is truly Brookings at its best.

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