So here's a figure that should stop you mid-scroll: 58% of real estate professionals say they or someone at their company got hit by fraud or a scam in the past year.
Read that again. That's not a fringe risk. That's more than half the industry.
This is unfortunately a topic of discussion more than it should have to be. Wire fraud, fake payoff letters, someone spoofing an email pretending to be the title company. And honestly, the more people involved in a deal, the more cracks there are for someone to slip through. Brokers, underwriters, layers and layers of approval, each one is a place where something can go wrong.
This is exactly why structure matters so much to us. When there's a direct lender in the mix, there are fewer hands touching the loan between the borrower and the money. No shopping it around to different funding sources behind the scenes. No wondering who's actually making the call. When we get a loan funded, we know the individual(s) financing it. Simple as that.
Does that make every risk disappear? No. But it closes off a whole category of exposure that agents and buyers are getting more nervous about. It’s sad that there are people out there who extort and are fraudulent, but they do exist. That’s why it’s always important to be over-diligent in this industry. And get to know your referral partners!
If you've got clients asking about financing right now, this is worth explaining plainly. Buyers don't care about the jargon. They care about knowing exactly who they're dealing with. That's the whole reason we built PDM around being direct, no middlemen, no guesswork, just us and the deal.
It’s just one of the reasons we're the Private Money Lender everyone's starting to talk about!
Source: NAR 2026 Member Profile
Husband & Wife Team Phone: 707‑708‑0797 / Office: 1400 N. Dutton Ave #22 Santa Rosa, CA 95401 Ken: CA DRE Broker #01858042 / NMLS #1221130 Ari: CA DRE #01858152 / NMLS #2170867 Ken & Ari are a husband & wife team with combined 3+ decades in real estate and private money industries. They own Pacific Direct Mortgage & Real Estate, specializing in Private Money loans (also known as Hard Money home loans). Having helped thousands of Borrowers & working directly with Brokers, Agents and Lenders to help when needed with fast, flexible, alternative financing for real estate purchases and refinances throughout California. No issues with DTI ratios, credit issues, property condition, difficult to prove income ‑ we want to help
Comments(2)