The New York Times - Jennifer Szalai
…Glantz skillfully tells a…story about American housing that's tortuous, confounding and ultimately enraging…Homewreckers shows what happens when private speculators get buoyed by government largess while non-tycoons are largely left to fend for themselves.
Publishers Weekly
09/23/2019
Members of President Trump’s inner circle have exploited the 2008 housing market collapse to amass wealth and power while sending U.S. homeownership rates to their lowest levels in more than 50 years, according to this cogent, infuriating exposé. Investigative journalist Glantz (The War Comes Home) targets such wealthy businessmen as U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, real estate investor Thomas Barrack Jr., and private equity fund founder Stephen Schwarzman, all of whom placed big bets on the housing market in the years after the crash. Between 2012 and 2014, for example, Schwarzman’s Blackstone Group spent $7.8 billion to buy 41,000 foreclosed homes across the U.S. and flip them into rental properties. Meanwhile, Mnunchin’s OneWest Bank was being rewarded under the terms of its loss-share agreement with the FDIC for foreclosing on thousands of reverse mortgages across Southern California. As a result of the “rigged” system that made such maneuvering possible, Glantz writes, millions of middle-class households have lost their best opportunity to build wealth. His lucid prose and impressive research make this an essential account of an under-the-radar housing crisis. Agent: Anthony Arnove, Roam Agency. (Oct.)
From the Publisher
Can’t recommend this joint enough. It is extremely hard to translate what is happening in our society right now. … Aaron Glantz does a great job moving through the jungle of jargon. But most importantly he implicitly raises a question that has been quietly dogging me for years: What does it mean to tell your children that their success is ultimately a matter of discipline, education, hard work, and citizenship, and then see that those factors have almost no power to explain the (financial) success of the Titans of America. ... An illuminating and discomfiting read.” — Ta-Nehisi Coates (via Instagram)
"Essential reading." — New York Review of Books
“Glantz skillfully tells a bigger story about American housing that’s tortuous, confounding and ultimately enraging.” — New York Times
“With prose that is as plainspoken as it is propulsive, Glantz explains how homeownership propelled the American Dream until 1986 only to fall, one financial scheme at a time, at the hands of billionaire money-grabbers and the failing regulators and gutless politicians who enable them.” — Beth Macy, author of Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America
“In case there was ever any doubt that the world of high finance affects American households, Aaron Glantz lays it to rest in this gripping narrative of how the foreclosure machine became a grand mechanism to convert America’s historic wealth building asset—its homes—into a commodity for financiers.” — Sarah Bloom Raskin, former deputy secretary of the US Treasury and former governor of the Federal Reserve Board
“An eye-opening account of how a cast of characters from Wall Street to Hollywood enriched themselves at the expense of American families. Glantz weaves together personal stories, historical context, and sharp and insightful analysis of how financiers created predatory products that wreaked devastation on the US economy and… countless families.” — Mehrsa Baradaran, professor of law at the University of California, Irvine School of Law
“Glantz, through exemplary journalism, reveals the new corporate landlords’ relationship to Donald Trump and their exploitation of loopholes in public policy, in combination with the endless resources of greedy bankers, to transform the 2008 foreclosure crisis into predatory renting schemes and cash in on widespread housing insecurity.” — Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, author of Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership
“This is a story that needs to be told, and Glantz tells it beautifully. Homewreckers reads like a novel, but it carries an important message: We must never let this happen again.” — Alan S. Blinder, Gordon S. Rentscher Professor of Economics and Public Affairs, Princeton University, former member of the Council of Economic Advisers, Vice Chairman of the Board of the Federal Reserve System
“In this remarkable book, Aaron Glantz provides a well-researched, highly readable look at one of the nation’s most underreported stories…a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the Great Recession and the role of the voracious financial interests who would go on to put Donald Trump in the White House.” — Gwenda Blair, author of The Trumps: Three Generations of Builders and a President
“A tale of greed and corruption...A solid, useful exploration of a system that ‘needs substantial, systemic change.’” — Kirkus Reviews
“[A] cogent, infuriating exposé… lucid prose and impressive research make this an essential account of an under-the-radar housing crisis.” — Publishers Weekly
“Glantz does an excellent job explaining the financial complexities of the housing crisis and its fallout. But the real strength of his book comes from the personal stories he weaves in to illustrate his points…the most surprising stories are those of the homewreckers themselves.” — BookPage
"A shocking investigation into America's housing crisis. ... A tale of greed and corruption." — Christiane Amanpour
"Smart, engrossing... chronicles how a few vulture capitalists scored big paydays on the backs of beleaguered middle-class homeowners, exploiting government largesse to cover their losses - and positioning themselves for top Trump administration jobs." — San Francisco Chronicle
Sarah Bloom Raskin
In case there was ever any doubt that the world of high finance affects American households, Aaron Glantz lays it to rest in this gripping narrative of how the foreclosure machine became a grand mechanism to convert America’s historic wealth building asset—its homes—into a commodity for financiers.
Gwenda Blair
In this remarkable book, Aaron Glantz provides a well-researched, highly readable look at one of the nation’s most underreported stories…a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the Great Recession and the role of the voracious financial interests who would go on to put Donald Trump in the White House.
Ta-Nehisi Coates (via Instagram)
Can’t recommend this joint enough. It is extremely hard to translate what is happening in our society right now. … Aaron Glantz does a great job moving through the jungle of jargon. But most importantly he implicitly raises a question that has been quietly dogging me for years: What does it mean to tell your children that their success is ultimately a matter of discipline, education, hard work, and citizenship, and then see that those factors have almost no power to explain the (financial) success of the Titans of America. ... An illuminating and discomfiting read.
New York Times
Glantz skillfully tells a bigger story about American housing that’s tortuous, confounding and ultimately enraging.”
professor of law at the University of California Mehrsa Baradaran
An eye-opening account of how a cast of characters from Wall Street to Hollywood enriched themselves at the expense of American families. Glantz weaves together personal stories, historical context, and sharp and insightful analysis of how financiers created predatory products that wreaked devastation on the US economy and… countless families.
Beth Macy
With prose that is as plainspoken as it is propulsive, Glantz explains how homeownership propelled the American Dream until 1986 only to fall, one financial scheme at a time, at the hands of billionaire money-grabbers and the failing regulators and gutless politicians who enable them.
New York Review of Books
"Essential reading."
Alan S. Blinder
This is a story that needs to be told, and Glantz tells it beautifully. Homewreckers reads like a novel, but it carries an important message: We must never let this happen again.
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Glantz, through exemplary journalism, reveals the new corporate landlords’ relationship to Donald Trump and their exploitation of loopholes in public policy, in combination with the endless resources of greedy bankers, to transform the 2008 foreclosure crisis into predatory renting schemes and cash in on widespread housing insecurity.
Christiane Amanpour
"A shocking investigation into America's housing crisis. ... A tale of greed and corruption."
BookPage
Glantz does an excellent job explaining the financial complexities of the housing crisis and its fallout. But the real strength of his book comes from the personal stories he weaves in to illustrate his points…the most surprising stories are those of the homewreckers themselves.”
San Francisco Chronicle
"Smart, engrossing... chronicles how a few vulture capitalists scored big paydays on the backs of beleaguered middle-class homeowners, exploiting government largesse to cover their losses - and positioning themselves for top Trump administration jobs."
San Francisco Chronicle
"Smart, engrossing... chronicles how a few vulture capitalists scored big paydays on the backs of beleaguered middle-class homeowners, exploiting government largesse to cover their losses - and positioning themselves for top Trump administration jobs."
Keeanga-Yamahatta Taylor
Glantz, through exemplary journalism, reveals the new corporate landlords’ relationship to Donald Trump and their exploitation of loopholes in public policy, in combination with the endless resources of greedy bankers, to transform the 2008 foreclosure crisis into predatory renting schemes and cash in on widespread housing insecurity.
Kirkus Reviews
2019-08-18
A tale of greed and corruption involving "corporate landlords" who "drove a generational transfer of wealth from hundreds of thousands of individual homeowners to a handful of well-heeled bankers and titans of private equity."
Many previous books have painted searing portraits of massive financial fraud in the mortgage and investment banking world, including David Dayen's Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street's Great Foreclosure Fraud (2016). While Dayen told his tale mostly from the ground up, Glantz (The War Comes Home: Washington's Battle Against America's Veterans, 2009, etc.), a Peabody Award-winning investigative reporter, relates the saga mostly from the top down. The author spotlights a variety of contemporary robber barons, including Donald Trump before he was president; Trump's father, Fred; Wilbur L. Ross Jr. before he was the Secretary of Commerce; and Steven T. Mnuchin before he became Secretary of the Treasury. Glantz's impressive research leads him to portray each of the tycoons as morally bankrupt and utterly without compassion for homeowners who lost their property. Occasionally, the author shifts the narrative to Sandy Jolley, a cheated homeowner who gathered copious amounts of information, found a lawyer willing to present her damning case to the federal government, and stood to gain substantial damages from the bankers under a law meant to reward whistleblowers. As Glantz relentlessly builds the indictment against the bankers, he wonders why law enforcement agencies failed to take any meaningful action. "It's hard to imagine [deals] so perfectly designed to lazily allow the government to undercut working-class Americans on behalf of a small group of billionaires," he writes, "but that is exactly what happened again and again." In addition to the Trumps, Ross, and Mnuchin, Glantz also levels warranted attacks against John Paulson, Jamie Dimon, Jared Kushner, and Sean Hannity. The similarities of the moguls' many predations may tire some readers, but the insertion of Jolley into the narrative bolsters the storyline.
A solid, useful exploration of a system that "needs substantial, systemic change."
