“When a bank does all it can to save itself, that’s good business,” Keith said. “When a homeowner does the same thing, he’s called a deadbeat.”
Reprieve after reprieve
A slow housing rebound for Prince George’s County.
For a guy who has lost much of his wealth and is on the verge of getting booted from his home, Keith Ritter is oddly calm. He says things such as, “No matter what happens, we are at peace” and likes to quote Scripture.
He and Janet pray daily, read the Bible, attend Pentecostal services and are reliable tithers. Their faith fuels their hope that they can somehow stave off eviction. But they also keep the sheriff’s office on speed dial. Keith calls the number every few days, always with the same question: “Do you have a date for us yet?”
By now, he recognizes the voices that answer the phone at the sheriff’s office. They keep the conversation brief.
No, nothing yet. Another reprieve.
Ritter’s composure in the face of eviction may be due to the fact that he has survived worse. A native of Detroit, he settled in the Washington area after college and started a successful company cleaning commercial buildings. Through his business, he got interested in real estate.
“I saw real estate as the way to wealth,” Ritter said.
By the 1990s, he was buying up properties in Northern Virginia, and he quickly learned that making money in real estate can be harder than it looks.
“I made a lot of mistakes,” he said.
According to federal prosecutors and court records, Ritter bought real estate and then put the properties in the names of family members. When he fell behind on mortgage payments, he filed for bankruptcy protection in his relatives’ names in various jurisdictions to stop foreclosure proceedings. Then he tried to get the bankruptcy filings dismissed without telling the mortgage lenders. He pleaded guilty in 2000 to bankruptcy fraud and was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison in Petersburg, Va., where he wrote the first of three books about his deepening faith, “Life From the Inside.”
“I’ve always loved God,” Ritter said. “I haven’t always obeyed God, but I’ve always loved him.”
When he got out of prison, he spent two years on probation, working at a Sears to pay $10,000 in court-ordered restitution.
By the time his probation ended in 2004, the housing boom was underway. He and Janet settled in Fort Washington, an affluent, fast-growing community south of the Beltway.
The Ritters started out in a $360,000, 2,300-square-foot house with a circular driveway and a pool. As its value skyrocketed, the couple borrowed against it to buy other properties in Fort Washington that they would fix up and then sell. They were convinced that National Harbor, a massive planned hotel, retail and convention center complex, would raise home values.
At one point, they owned seven properties. In 2004, the run-up in prices was so steep that the Ritters grossed more than $200,000 in six months, off two deals. In 2006, they made close to that amount with a single sale.
The couple, who have no children, began driving Mercedes-Benz sedans and taking trips to Europe and the Middle East. They also donated $6,000 to a church in Springfield, court records show.
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