'Flopping' Homes the Latest Short-Sale Scam

Wherever there is a crisis, there will be a line of unscrupulous people poised to take advantage of it. The housing crisis is no exception. According to CoreLogic, fraud occurs in one in every 53 short sales. And sometimes, it's not the homeowner but the lender who is targeted in the scam.

While hearing that lenders have gotten burned may not exactly bring fret to the brow of the underwater-mortgage crowd, a fraud is a fraud is a fraud -- and it actually does undermine home sellers, who may be taxed on the difference between the loan balance owed and the price the house fetched in a short sale or foreclosure auction.