Short Sale Fraud is Heating Up! Large CA Newspaper weighs in...

SHORT SALE FRAUD

Just over two months ago, I wrote a piece about short sale fraud titled Fraud upon Fraud... (upon fraud)

It got a tremendous response from my fellow 'Rainers.  I've heard a lot of talk about lately.  I've heard that it has become common for agents to see it throughout California, and what was once an anomoly, it appears that now it is (dare I say) rampant?  It seems these things go in trends, and certain patterns get noticed.  

Now, the Orange County Register has run an article on the topic.

For those of you outside of California, Orange County, where the aforementioned article was written in their paper is about 400 miles from where I live.  I'm sure there eare not only two spots in California where it is taking place.
What is essential here, and what I'd like to point out is that in most of these cases, there is an agent involved.

 The trend I see is that it is the same agents, from the same brokerages, that seem to be doing the lion's share of this crap.

My recommendation is that the local boards set up an anonymous hotline, or website, or perhaps the CA Association of Realtors, or even the Attorneys General or the CA Department of Real Estate do it.  

We have the resources as Realtors to see from the MLS some ridiculous sales, and on my MLS I can see who bought what.  If I see the same owner buy two houses within 2 weeks using the same Realtor, and there is a low down payment, guess what-- it probably is fraudulent.  It is real easy.  We have the MLS, the government has subpeona power.

It is destroying neighborhoods.  People are trying to refinance and yet they cannot get the value they need because some screw-up has done this fraud, and it messes up the values for all homes in the immediate neighborhood.  Furthermore, people have mobile devices.  They can see o9n some sites the pending sales, and you show them a home at say, $800,000 and they see the one across the street listed at $500,000, which is way below market price and may or may not close.  Also, with all due respect to our appraiser subscribers, some do not know the condition of the house that is being short sold or do they dig deep into county records.

I strongly urge local boards to unite against this and take positive steps towards eradicating the problem.  Our Code of Ethics tells us to protect private property rights, which I take to include the rights of those homeowners who are getting screwed over by these unethical agents.

I f your local board is doing something about it, please let us know by commenting here.  If it is a problem in your area, also comment here.