Imagine you run an operation that pulls in well over a quarter-billion dollars each year. How hard would you fight to keep it running? What kind of infrastructure would you build? What resources would you pour into finding the next customer, the next opening, the next person who would rather keep a deal moving than slow down and ask one more question?
That is roughly the scale of what real estate fraud costs victims last year. The FBI reported $275 million in real estate fraud losses in 2025, and business email compromise losses across every sector topped $3 billion. None of it comes from a legitimate business. It comes from scams, deepfakes, forged deeds and hijacked email accounts.
A safety conversation that started with a tragedy
Nearly 12 years ago, the murder of Beverly Carter made the physical safety of real estate professionals a top priority again, for the National Association of Realtors, for local associations and for anyone who had gotten too comfortable walking into empty houses alone. Her death is part of why Realtor Safety Month exists in its current form and why the conversations around it keep pushing this industry toward greater awareness, tools and strategies.
In the years since, the profession has returned again and again to a few basic principles: work in pairs when a showing feels uncertain, set physical boundaries with people you have not verified, and treat a red flag as a red flag instead of talking yourself out of it.
Those physical threats remain. Brokers and agents are wise to keep fighting them. The battlefield, though, has expanded. Today, we sit between the criminal elements of society and the consumers we vow to protect, and a multibillion-dollar business is booming by exploiting our best instincts to answer the call, accommodate the showing and keep the transaction moving.
What comes naturally to human behavior or instinct serves clients well most of the time. It is also exactly what the scoundrels running this fraud enterprise count on.
The seller impersonation scheme
Seller impersonation is the cleanest example. In June, the FBI issued a public warning about the scheme. A scammer finds vacant land or an inherited home with an absentee owner, pulls the owner’s information from public records or a data broker and builds a fake identity around it, sometimes with a forged deed. They contact a local agent and a title company, refuse to meet in person and push for a fast close.
By the time anyone realizes the real owner had no idea the property was listed, the money is often gone, routed to an account under a different name or sitting overseas. Vacant land is a common target for a simple reason: no tenant, no neighbors and often no mortgage servicer watching the account. An owner across the country may not notice the land was sold out from under them until a tax notice or a title question shows up months later.
Wire fraud, only quieter
Wire fraud works the same way, only quieter. It usually shows up as a small, reasonable-sounding change buried in a thread just before closing. A “title company” or a seller’s “representative” sends updated instructions. Bank switch. Routing error. The account numbers are different. Everything else, including the signature block, looks normal because someone has been reading the thread for weeks.
Instructions that change at all. A request that comes only by email. Pressure to move now. A sender’s email address is off by one letter. None of those proves fraud by itself. Any one of them is worth a phone call before money moves and to a number already on file, not the number in the email with the new instructions.
Buyers should hear that at contract signing, well before a convincing email gives them a reason to test it.
What technology can and cannot do
More brokerages and title companies are using third-party identity-verification tools for unfamiliar or high-risk files, and these tools can help. They can help verify that the person on the other end is who they claim to be, flag mismatches with public records, and give an agent a documented reason to pause.
Technology is a useful layer. It is not the decision. Public records can tell you who owns a property. They cannot prove the person texting you is the owner. When the seller is remote, the communication is odd, or the file is being rushed, an independently established contact method matters more than checking another box.
The habits that still matter
The old risks have not been replaced. They have been joined.
Meeting a stranger at a vacant house is still one of the riskiest parts of the job.
- Verify who you are meeting before you are standing there alone.
- Share the schedule with a colleague, a spouse or a brokerage check-in.
- Follow your office’s prospect-verification procedures.
- Meet first-time clients at the office or in public when that is the smarter play.
Open houses invite anyone through the door. A sign-in sheet, a second person on site when you can get one, and a habit of noting the exits and the cell coverage are small steps that add up.
The agents who stay safest treat this as part of the job, not a September theme. Build verification into intake. Do not skip the second look at a file that feels hurried. Keep the personal-safety habits in place even after decades in the business. Perhaps most importantly, share intelligence. Share with other agents or brokers and share with consumers.
Take a tactical pause
One of the most important things we can give Realtors permission to do is take a tactical pause. Make the extra phone call. Ask the second question. A transaction moving quickly is never more important than ensuring it is legitimate and that everyone involved walks away safe, physically and financially.
The criminal side has infrastructure, patience and a growing product line. Verification and safety tools built for this industry can strengthen that defense. Solutions like Tether RE for brokers and agents and Closinglock for the title agent or attorney are great for augmenting defense when paired with good process, professional skepticism and the willingness to stop when something does not feel right.
The industry has gotten better at talking about this. The next step is to make sure the conversation shows up at every showing and every consumer interaction, 24/7, 365 days a year.
Money Matters Month is here. All September, Inman is focused on the financial side of real estate — the part nobody teaches you when you get your license. How to budget through lean times, protect your profits when business is good and find new ways to grow your bottom line no matter what the market is doing.
Chris Atwell is the 2026 President of the Orlando Regional Realtor Association (ORRA) and 2026 Chairman of National Association of Realtors’ Realtor Safety Advisory Committee.
