Building costs (like rents) are high in Manhattan, but Blair is trying to keep expenses in check by using in-house construction crews and paying subcontractors bonuses to deliver work at the lowest possible cost.

FORBES: Magazine Article

As the banks who sold on these mortgages were not putting up their own money as collateral, they no longer used their own in-house bank managers to assess the income of their borrowers and check the real value of the house they were giving a mortgage on.

BBC: Carnage on Wall Street as loans go bad