Flipper Victims Sue Developer: Should Others Be Worried?

Many remorseful Americans are finding their property values have plummeted, their neighborhoods have gone to the dogs, and their neighbors have defaulted right out of their houses. So whose fault is it anyway?

Jonathon and Brandy Miller, of Boynton Beach, Fla., think they have an answer. The couple sued the builder of their townhouse, Hovnanian Enterprises Inc., for selling multiple units in their development to home flippers.

Instead of the mini-utopia they were promised in the development called Firenze, the Millers say, they found it full of transients. Not homeless folks but real estate flippers who bought homes with the sole intent of selling them.

Now it's a ghost town instead of a neighborhood, where vandals have looted everything but the kitchen sink, and maybe even the kitchen sink, in some homes. "The exercise room was burglarized," reports the Wall Street Journal. "The clubhouse remains locked for fear of vandalism. Landscaping deteriorated."