This $200,000 home will sell in the next 12 hours for $100,000

What happened to the Nigerian phone calls with the million dollar scams? A new real estate scam has hit and rumors are that the scammers maybe hitting Kansas.

What the suspected crooks do is they draft a phoney bank statement and head to a nearby real estate office acting like real estate buyers. The suspected crooks take information and pictures of the properties they view. They then post real estate ads on Craigslist as though they’re the owners of the homes. They post for sale and rental ads on the properties. Obviously, the crooks design ads that are to good to believe. Maybe a $200,000 home for $100,000. One suspected ad had this title: " This $200,000 home will sell in the next 12 hours for $100,000."

Innocent people then start putting down deposits on the homes. The crooks then leave for another city. One group of crooks left a Kansas town with over $23,000 in deposits. That is a lot of people who had to have been swindled.

You say it can't happen to you. I placed an ad for one of my $850,000 foreclosure listings. It was heading to a foreclosure auction unless the seller could redeem the mortgage amount to the bank within 2 weeks. I had some awesome offers and I had people lining up throwing money around. The eventual buyer got one heck of a steal and the property did sell low.
Honest real estate transaction in Kansas City are done on either real estate board certified or attorney written contracts. The earnest deposits are kept in an escrow account. Whether buying or renting in Kansas City, if you don’t understand the paperwork, seek an attorney.

RE/MAX sells more homes than any other real estate company.
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Blog post written by the Dowell Taggart Team of RE/MAX Best Associates

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