Dream Homes in Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley Association of Realtors recently issued a consumer alert on Fraudulent rental advertisements.  Some realtors have reported that their listings became the targets of this type of scam.

Some con artists using various websites advertise a house for rent, when the vacant property is actually for sale.  Prospective tenants who called the con artists are asked to provide an application fee and rental deposit immediately if they wanted to lease the property. 

The Department of Real Estate has issued similar warning in the past about the Impostor Landlords.  However, such scam is getting rampant in the Bay Area.  Here are the tips to protect the prospective tenants from this type of scam: (below are from SILVAR, Silicon Valley Association of Realtors.)

• Ask anyone offering a house for rent to provide you with proof that they own the house, and to show you their government issued picture identification. Then scrutinize the proof of ownership, as well as the identifications since there is also the risk that their identifications can be false.

• If you think that you are dealing with an owner’s/landlord’s representative, you should check with the DRE to see if that representative or agent is licensed. This is because a real estate license is required, with some narrow exceptions, for a person to offer a house for rent as an agent of the owner. Check the license records on the DRE website (www.dre.ca.gov) and make sure you are working with legitimate licensees.

• If you are an existing tenant, you should check with the County Recorder’s office to verify the property’s owner of record. If the house has been foreclosed upon, you should contact the new owner and verify with the current owner the person to whom you should be forwarding your rental payments.

If you feel you have dealt with a scammer in the area of a housing rental or have been defrauded in connection with rental of a house, please contact the DRE at the following numbers: For Spanish-speaking consumers, call 1-877-DRE-4321; for consumers in the Bay Area, call (510) 622-2552.