The Latest Grift, Rental Scams

Tenant Beware - Landlord Beware

Yes, Virginia, scammers can take advantage of tenants and home owners in Southwest Florida and the Bonita Springs real estate market is ripe for the picking.

Although you and I don’t think with criminal minds there are other people that do. The real estate market has brought on swift and confusing changes. There are vacant homes, foreclosures, short sales and rentals galore. Bonita Springs, Florida has always been the land of absentee owners. We have even more now with the excessive inventory on the market. The market conditions breed all sorts of scams.

Nation wide rental scams are starting to pop up which homeowners, tenants and consumers need to be aware of. It hadn’t really occurred to me how easy it would be to take advantage of someone looking for a home to rent until now. There are even scammers that rent homes with the intent to show and rent the home to other tenants. They get the security, first, last or whatever monies they can get and then they leave town. In some circumstances they have written dozens of leases to dozens of tenants and skip town with a boat load of cash.

Sometimes the scammers just act as though they work on behalf of the home owner, as the homeowner is out of town, out of the country, ill, hospitalized, etc. The victim pays the money and the person who rented them the home disappears. They later learn the house or apartment was not for rent. Of course, their wallets are lighter when they find out.

What can you do to protect yourself if you are a tenant looking for a home or condominium to rent in the Bonita Springs area? There are a few ways to check to make sure the person who says they own the property actually owns the property. Continue Reading