Excerpted from an article at The Outline by Cole Hawes Louison.

On December 12, 2013, a three-story brick townhouse in a swank part of Brooklyn sold for $20,000. A mysterious organization called AOTA LLC bought it from a guy named Barrington Adrian, who had bought it 10 years before from Rosa Perez, a Puerto Rican lady, who had lived there for 30 years with her son Eddie, and still lived there when I moved in in 2011.

How could a house in a desirable neighborhood sell for less than the price of a parking space underneath a condo on the same block?

It took me years to find out, and years to tell this story. It’s a hard story to tell. One that’s both personal, financial, and also historical, since it’s the story of a house that remains all but unsalable today. No one person will buy it. And no one person will buy it because the house has what’s called a “clouded history.” And the clouded history is the result of the mortgage crisis that happened 10 years ago, which nearly brought about a second Great Depression and did bring about 8 million Americans losing their homes.

Please know that this story gets confusing in places. But stay with me, because as we move along, things do become more clear and organized. Also: I’ve changed some people’s names, though not that of Barrington Adrian, who did not respond to calls or Facebook or LinkedIn queries for comment on this article, and according to public records lives in a co-op on the Lower East Side, and still engages in the kind of real estate deals described here. From here on out, if I’m using someone’s real name, I’ll put “(real name)” after their name.

Please know that this story gets confusing in places. But stay with me, because as we move along, things do become more clear and organized. Also: I’ve changed some people’s names, though not that of Barrington Adrian, who did not respond to calls or Facebook or LinkedIn queries for comment on this article, and according to public records lives in a co-op on the Lower East Side, and still engages in the kind of real estate deals described here. From here on out, if I’m using someone’s real name, I’ll put “(real name)” after their name.

Part of my research for this article was watching The Big Short about a dozen times. The 2015 film, you’ll remember, is about the group of traders who caught onto the subprime mortgage scandal and bought insurance bonds that would rocket in value if/when the housing market collapsed. I’d suggest seeing it, or at the very least looking it up on Wikipedia (or even reading the 2010 bestseller of the same name by Michael Lewis). I’d also suggest referring to the glossary of Important Real Estate Words (IREW). These words — like “mortgage” (a home loan) — are used again and again and again in the piece, and are important, but not explained in the main text.

Read the whole article here.