The National Association of Realtors announced today that they’ve created a new online resource designed to help members prevent, detect and report real estate fraud.
Called “Protecting Your Clients and Your Business from Fraud,” the digital hub is meant to combat the rising cost of real estate fraud, which the FBI put at $275 million last year.
Nia Duggins | Credit: NAR
“Fraud is a major issue and challenge within the real estate industry. It is important that real estate agents and brokers understand how to protect themselves and their clients,” Nia Duggins, NAR’s senior policy representative of business issues, said in a statement accompanying the rollout of the site.
For real estate agents, the site provides guidance on what NAR calls “basic cyber hygiene” like multifactor authentication and password management. For brokerages, guidance includes procedures for responding to fraud, training agents and staff on best practices and educating clients about scams.
In the statement, NAR Senior Policy Representative Austin Perez said that real estate transactions are particularly “attractive” fraud targets because “they involve large sums of money, tight deadlines, multiple parties and extensive electronic communications.”
For most clients, real estate transactions are relatively rare, occurring only a few times in a person’s life. That makes real estate professionals, who work with transactions every day, uniquely qualified “to help clients recognize red flags, slow down, verify information and avoid common fraud schemes,” Perez said.
The site is divided into prevention, detection and reporting sections, and offers contact information, detection strategies and additional resources. NAR said in the statement that it will keep updating the resource as new fraud types emerge.
