I would not be surprised if mortgages from Puerto Rico held by the US Treasury or on the balance sheet of banks were for homes that do not exist either. The government of Puerto Rico is known to be corrupt and has changed the measured distance of many roads on the island at least 2 times in the last ten years. This correlates with when the US treasury window was open to MBS paper exchanges at par value.
Every public road in Puerto Rico is kilometre marked as highways in the US are mile marked. Addresses to property are then designated by the km sign they are nearest too. From what I can tell with my limited Spanish ability, the legal address of the property is based on this as well. The government here decided to remeasure and mark these roads twice in the last ten years, effectively creating an entire new set of legal addresses for many roads that cross the entire island.
The simple act itself is not corrupt. Illinois' budget is also in a financial hardship, from what I have read. In my own reasoning to answer the question of, what is behind making a change to legal addresses like that. The only answer I have come up with based on the opinions I have heard of corruption in the government, is that it would be nessecary to fabricate entire MBS or parts of MBS, that then could have been sold to the treasury at par value. The address changes happened while they were accepting the 4 trillion plus, in mortgage backed securities that they now hold.
