By Danon Burnside
How to avoid falling victim to fraudsters in the homebuying process
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t’s the dream of most San Bernardino citizens to become homeowners. The financial sacrifices and hustle for years to make that dream a reality sometimes is all in vain and unfortunately, this turns out to be a nightmare that most usually don’t get over. This is because Real estate fraudsters are always ready to take advantage of such opportunities, to commit crimes and sow where they did not reap by conning their victims. Homeownership has currently been prone to fraud especially due to the digitized home buying processes. As much as mobile and online transactions have been advantageous for the real estate world, they are a big part of the increased fraud cases. As per 2021 CoreLogic’s, the National Mortgage Application Fraud Risk index increased 37.2 year over year. The county District Attorney’s Office of San Diego like most cities in the United States has adopted and advanced a Real Estate Fraud unit for investigations and prosecution of real estate criminals and fraudsters. HOW TO AVOID BEING THE VICTIM OF A FRAUDSTER ALWAYS HAVE A QUALIFIED AND LEGITIMATE REAL ESTATE AGENT It might be tempting to prefer buying a house without a realtor to save more. This however puts the buyer at the risk of falling a victim to fraudsters. Realtors protect, act as buyer’s representatives and advocates. They, therefore, guide buyers
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