Multiple Listings Manipulation Tricks

Posted in Real Estate Foreclosures, July 3rd, 2007 |

The MLS or Multiple Listing Services includes every item of property except those up for sale by the owner. It is often an indicator for market rates. But agents sometimes raise the price. This comes in handy when there is a mortgage fraud. The broker pays the seller the original listed price but takes back the extra amount from behind the back at the close of the deal.

It has a snowballing effect. Other sellers overprice their units and then are unable to dispose of them while some hasty buyers pay more than the current rate. The story does not end there. In an atmosphere of fraud the ordinary man pays more taxes calculated on a false basis.

The problem is so acute that a fraud task force has been formed offering seminars to acquaint all about the happenings. One Miami realtor, Brian Carter, recounts that after verbally agreeing to a price he was later asked to raise it in the MLS allowing the buyer to get back his money. He immediately backed out of the deal. But the offers have come to him again and again.

Another broker, Coldwell Banker of Coral Gables says that half of the realtors present at a meeting admitted that a chunk of the money goes back to the buyer after the so-called sale duping the seller.

In another case Diz, a real estate agent increased the price of a Coral Gables property but later backed out. He never got a commission. The property had been bought a year ago for $850,000 was sold off $1.2 million! Diz retreated after smelling a rat and went by his instincts.

The MLS is private database and used by about 48,000 in southeast Florida. It is difficult to bring it under regulations. But some realtors in South Florida are instructing their representatives sternly to refrain form getting involved in this type of fraud.
Eight month ago, Coldwell Banker had restrained his agents from raising listing prices without the sanction of the manager. In another establishment, Douglas Ellimann, only one person who is an administrator has the right to deal with the listings. If there are changes then a written notice is required from all the parties involved. Even then these are carefully scrutinized.
Judith Corocos, a sales manager is of the opinion that usually honest buyers would not require credits at closing.

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