Foreign National Buyer Real Estate Scam and How To Spot It

Photo Courtesy of DJ Badly from Flickr.com

Did you know that before you even step foot onto American soil one or many estate agents may have already had their hands in your pockets? It’s called a builder’s registration and it works like this:

• When a potential home buyer, we’ll call them Buyer A, is interested in a new construction community Buyer A generally contacts the person, we’ll call them Broker B, that was advertising the information.
   
• Broker B then gets your information and knows which community you are interested in.
   
• Broker B calls the builder and fills out what’s called a “broker registration” and that basically says that Buyer A is a client of Broker B and if Buyer A purchases a property in that community Broker B gets paid the commission even if Buyer A doesn’t know about it.
   
• Broker B doesn’t even have to be there for this to happen Broker B just needs Buyer A’s information registered via fax or e-mail before Buyer A arrives at the property.

Now this is not a bad thing in the event that it’s YOUR chosen estate agent that is registering you however, it’s usually not. Because builders are allowed to pay a commission to brokerages all over the world it’s usually an estate agent in your own country that you spoke with, or even your travel agency that knows your coming to the states, that obtained your information and registered you with virtually every builder within a 50 mile radius of where you are staying. This affects you because if you end up working with a great estate agent here in the states and they take you around and show you all the new communities and guide you through the whole process, when they try to register you they find out somebody else that you don’t even know or trust has already done so. It complicates the whole process for you and the agent and also affects you if that agent has offered you a rebate or incentive, you may not be eligible for that anymore. It happens everyday and we see it all the time. Buyers beware of who is taking your information, not just here in the states but in your country as well. The last thing you want to do is become somebody’s paycheck!