I found this, which describes wha tthe realtor was telling me.
Mortgage fraud has been on the rise and more officials are getting involved to curb the increase in loss. Nevada, and Las Vegas in particular, is one of the hot spots that contribute to the $1 billion loss.
Nevada, and its glowing city of Las Vegas, is one of the nation’s hotspots for mortgage fraud. The current housing market is creating a bed of discontent that opens up many opportunities for more fraud. Investors in Vegas have been going around offering homeowners hundreds of thousands of dollars more than their home is worth, even in the present housing market.
The fraud is that buyers offer a homeowner much more than the home is worth, with the contingency to get most of the surplus back at closing. Though many sellers can smell something funny with the deal, most of them are too relieved to unload unwanted property that they turn a blind eye to the obvious fraud. And fraud is what the scenario is; buyers should not get money back at closing, especially not hundreds of thousands of dollars. In the current market, sellers have to be wary of the increase chance of fraud.
