Real estate scams are still rampant despite countless attempts of the government to protect the public from these incidents. What are real estate scams and how can you avoid falling prey to such scams?
Real estate scams still take place in this day and age despite increased security and warnings from authorities and proper agencies. According to Forbes, this may be due to the fact that scams are also changing.
"Consumers are now more aware of scams, but because scams have gotten more sophisticated, consumers are not sure they know how to avoid them," said Barbara Floyd Jones from NeighborWorks America.
Over a period of four years, the organization has tracked roughly 35,000 consumer complaints pertaining to loan modification fraud alone. This meant that efforts to educate and warn the public about the different kinds of scam in the real estate market have not reduced the incidents.
Rental scams are said to be one of the most popular real estate scams in the market. While the internet is a great way of searching for available properties, some people can also take advantage of its accessibility to trick interested buyers.
According to the publication, some can scrape a listing from other sellers and re-post the property as their own on another website. In order to avoid becoming a victim of this scam, the Federal Trade Commission suggests that buyers should be wary if the seller asks them to wire money or asks for upfront fees before signing a contract.
Many people also fall prey to loan modification scams, especially those that promise to help homeowners with foreclosure-related services. These people often ask for upfront fees, but homeowners must be wary of the fact that lawyers do not ask for such fees until a decision has been made.
Meanwhile, Realtor.com stated some of the craziest real estate scams that took place in the earlier years.
The publication noted that scammers in the past went as far as pretending to own a portion of or the entirety of a public property such as the Brooklyn Bridge, the Eiffel Tower of even the Taj Mahal.
The solution? Do your research and use your common sense. If something sounds too good to be true, always verify with the proper authorities and always ask questions.
