NAR launches a fraud resource for agents as the FBI puts 2025 losses to real estate fraud at $275 million and "AI makes impersonation more convincing"

The National Association of Realtors launched "Protecting Your Clients and Your Business From Fraud" on 1 October, an online resource at nar.realtor/fraud for its members. The release quotes the FBI: individuals lost $275 million to real estate fraud in 2025.

What the page says

Most real estate fraud, the resource says, "follows the same pattern: someone pretends to be someone they are not" - a buyer, seller, owner, lender, title professional, attorney or broker. Transactions attract it because they combine large sums, tight deadlines, many parties and constant electronic communication, and public property records make targets easy to find. Business email compromise remains a major threat: in one of the most common schemes a criminal gets into, or closely imitates, a real email account and sends wire instructions from it.

On AI the page is direct. Fraudsters "can clone a real estate professional's voice from publicly available audio, spoof a trusted phone number, or create realistic fake documents", and "a familiar voice, caller ID, email address, or text message is not proof of identity".

The three steps

Prevent: verify any new wiring instruction, payment request, identity document or ownership claim through a contact obtained independently of the message that carried it; turn on multifactor authentication; write brokerage fraud procedures and rehearse them. The page lists transactions that merit extra checks - a vacant property, an owner who lives out of state, a seller who will not meet or join a live video call, a price below market.

Detect: red flags by stage, from a seller who refuses to verify identity before listing to a property owner finding unauthorised title activity after closing, each with what may be happening and whom to contact.

Report: if money has gone, contact the sending bank at once and ask for a recall, notify the broker and the title or escrow company, file with the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center and the local police, and preserve every message. "Generally, the first few hours are the most critical."

Nia Duggins, NAR's senior policy representative for business issues: "Fraud is a major issue and challenge within the real estate industry." Sections on title fraud, cryptocurrency scams, investment fraud, AI and deepfake impersonation, rental and listing scams and cybercrime are marked coming soon.