[zenkat]

"The short story is that I’ll be collecting interest on this loan at a rate of 10%, until 11 months from now when the loan is suddenly repaid in a balloon payment."

Sounds a whole lot like subprime. In a rising market, it's not a bad deal. In a flat/down market, expect a lot of these to crater.

[josephpmay]

The difference (I believe) is the people taking out these loans are professional real estate investors with good credit.