Always be aware. . .
Hackers are posing mortgage and title insurance company employees in order to steal the down payments of homebuyers in one of the wealthiest cities in the country.
Police in Southlake, Texas, a suburb of the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex and the fourth wealthiest city in the U.S., based on data from the Census Bureau, issued a warning this week about scammers who are hacking into the email accounts of real estate professionals and then pose as title company employees in order to steal a homebuyer’s down payment.
And in Southlake, the down payments can be quite high.
According to data from Zillow, the median home value in Southlake is $686,200, the median price of homes currently listed in the area is $995,000, and the median price of homes recently sold is $606,500.
According to the Southlake PD, they’ve seen about 10 cases in the last six months where hackers attempted to steal a homebuyer’s down payment.
And this is hardly the first time a scam like this has been uncovered.