It's hard to think like a crook. Part of the problem is crooks are often not very smart. I mean, if they were smart, they would think of some other way to make a living than to be a crook. Because there are other options, you know. You don't have to turn to a life of crime to pay the bills.
I'm not talking the guy who shows up to rob a bank and leaves evidence of his home address at the teller's window. Or the burglar who breaks into your home and leaves his cell phone on the kitchen counter. These are the types who might pull on an inside-out t-shirt from a laundry basket and consider themselves well dressed. The kind who have crap for brains. I'm talking about the kind of crook who thinks he or she is much smarter than everybody else yet this person is still a crook.
There are a ton of crooks in real estate. Sometimes, they come out of left field and you never see them coming toward you. These types are generally very charming individuals. They could sweet talk their way into the Pentagon. Unfortunately, I have to continually be on guard for them because I am a Sacramento short sale agent. The short sale business, especially, is ripe for crooks. As a seller, it must be hard to know who to trust.
On the one hand, you've got banks like Bank of America making its SHORT SALE SPECIAL OFFERS. Sending out emails with splashy red lettering to short sale agents advertising a LIMITED TIME OFFER. It's called the SHORT SALE RELOCATION ASSISTANCE PROGRAM, and it pays $2,500 to $30,000. It's cash for a short sale. It's legitimate. The bank has been doing this for several years but never in such a big way as it is now.
So I wasn't really on guard yesterday when this agent called me out of the blue. He wanted to know if I was interested in handling a referral he wanted to give me for 1041 Havenhill Street. I looked up the property and we talked about it. I noticed it had FHA financing, so I began to explain how an FHA short sale works. He cut me off to say the sellers wanted more money.
Then, he began to explain how he had sold several short sales in New York. I'm thinking to myself how did he do that? Does he have a real estate license in several states? He launched into a proposed scenario in which the buyer makes a side agreement with the seller and agrees to pay the seller cash at closing. After all, he had done that in New York, he said. There was a pause in our conversation as I stared at my cell phone in amazement as my jaw fell open.
Short sale mortgage fraud. That's what he was proposing. I asked him if that was his idea of how to do a short sale -- to commit mortgage fraud? My phone suddenly went dead. He had hung up on me.
I'm not going into all of the reasons not to be a crook. There are plenty of them. Let's just look at one reason, if you can't think of any other reason. If you commit mortgage fraud to do a short sale and get a release of liability, that release can be rescinded. Which then totally defeats the whole purpose of a short sale. Don't try to think like a crook. You're too smart for that.
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