← Estate of Mind — The Art of Selling Luxury Real Estate
Estate of Mind — The Art of Selling Luxury Real Estate
How to Spot and Stop Scammers in Luxury Real Estate
00:51:47
Scams aren’t just happening online, they’re happening in real estate. In this Estate of Mind episode, hosts Tami Simms and Jack Miller expose the most common scams targeting luxury agents and their clients, from wire fraud and fake listings to digital impersonation. Learn how to identify red flags, protect your business, and safeguard your clients’ trust. Featuring real-world examples and practical steps for prevention, this is essential listening for anyone working in high-value real estate transactions. Stay informed. Stay protected. Stay professional.
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- [00:01]
Jack Miller
Oh, some sellers, I should say, are so desperate for action that they will overlook things even when we're telling them.
- [00:08]
Robert Stutz
Because they want it to be true.
- [00:09]
Jack Miller
Because they want it to be true. And that's one of the things that one of our colleagues said in one of the panel discussions. He said a lot of times our sellers wanted to be true. And so they accept things at their face value. And, and a lot of agents do the same thing and they would Photoshop documentation, right? You know, and they still doing that. They still, still using AI or whatever to create false documentation.
- [00:31]
Tammy Sims
Today's podcast is brought to you by Interlux Auctions. Your solution to guarantee competitive offers on your luxury listings with no compromise to commission. Visit InterLuxe.com today to find out more. That's I n T E R l u x e.com welcome to a State of Mind, a podcast series all about motivating, inspiring and educating, educating you in the art of selling luxury real estate. The podcast is brought to you by the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing. I'm Tammy Sims, lead trainer for the institute and a full time real estate professional in St. Petersburg, Florida for more than two decades. In today's episode we're going to talk about how to flush out scammers in luxury real estate. Joining me today is my co host, Jack Miller, a 25 plus year veteran luxury agent with Onward Real Estate in the greater Nashville, Tennessee market. And we have a, a very special and important guest today who Jack's going to introduce.
- [01:38]
Jack Miller
Hi Tammy, good to see you. We're joined today by Robert Stutz who is also a 25 year plus veteran of our industry and he happens to be my business partner here at Onward Real Estate. And, and Robert is the shy and quiet one who often takes the back seat. But I talked to him doing this today.
- [01:58]
Robert Stutz
You did, and you get a little out of me, but not my nature, but I'll try.
- [02:03]
Tammy Sims
Excellent. Well, welcome. We are delighted to have you. So Jack and Robert incidentally, have held four different panels over the last 15 years with agents in their marketplace specifically talking about this topic. So this is kind of a condensed version, a little intimate conversation with just the three of us. And I think it's important to kind of set the stage about why this topic is important. We know that bad things can happen to people in our industry, meeting people that we don't know in empty homes and you can see the headlines. But in the upper tier the stakes can get even higher. And what I'm talking about is people who are using us to gain access to luxury homes, often for nefarious reasons. It could be for burglary, it could be in some cases for potential kidnapping. So really the stakes are higher and there's just the fact that some people just really like to use us to get inside luxury properties. So Jack and Robert lead us into this conversation.
- [03:16]
Jack Miller
Well, the panel discussion first of all has been a big hit in our market. We've extended it to agents all across the greater Nashville area. And every time we've done it, it's been standing room only. And basically we invite some of the top brokers to come in and share their experiences. We'll share some of ours today. But it's remarkable how many different scenarios you can come across. I think what we try to do and to help our audience today is talk about what we learned from these experiences and also what the red flags are and how, you know, you're coming into a caution area and a potential scam artist. Our what our topic is called we do the panel discussions.
- [03:55]
Robert Stutz
It started the million dollar disappointment, but prices went higher and then it became the multi million dollar.
- [04:01]
Jack Miller
The multi million dollar disappointment. How to flush out scam artists in the luxury space. So I'm going to mention a couple scenarios right off the bat. So for the first time we encountered this was probably close to 20 years ago we met this gentleman named Brad and his wife. They wanted to buy a very high end estate home out in the country. And he was just an incredibly likable guy, you know, really astute, presented well. But he was a fast talker and he was a fast mover and he was a big name dropper. And you know, we learned a lot from this because it was the first time we encountered somebody of that nature. And he wanted to write a contract on a property on a Friday afternoon at 4 o'. Clock. At 4 o'. Clock, which we learned is a red flag right off the bat because his bank of course was on the east coast. Of course we couldn't, we couldn't reach a banker to verify anything. This house was vacant. So we were showing it without getting proof of funds. Now we would never do that, of course, but back then we were learning the process and so we thought, well, it's vacant house. Sounds like a great guy on the phone. He sounds very serious. All those things were true. But he, but he wanted to write this contract and we could not verify anything. And he was pushing really hard for quick possession cash to close. Da da da. And the more he talked, the more concerned we got. We basically pulled out the situation Said, hey, let's pull back. Let's wait till next week. Let's circle back with your wealth manager, your private banker, and then we'll write the contract. And that's how we left it. Over that weekend, I got a call from another agent who had been in business for several years, telling me that he had written a contract for this same buyer. And he said, don't worry, we wrote you into the contract. We know you're represented him. He's told us that you're representing our.
- [05:44]
Robert Stutz
Name to get through to this agent.
- [05:46]
Jack Miller
That's right. He used our names as the credibility to get the showing he want on a different property with the same store. So this agent actually wrote a contract up and actually had the seller sent to the seller to sign it. And it was early possession. 30 days early possession was all these things, buying the furniture, moving in.
- [06:07]
Robert Stutz
Right away, Utilities changed into his name.
- [06:10]
Jack Miller
And he was already changing utilities into his name, like immediately jumped into all this stuff on that Monday. And we asked the agent, we said, please pull back on the reins. Do not execute that contract and do not move forward until we verify. So it turned out he was a scam artist. And this and that other seller, his client, contacted me and Robert to ask us what was going on. We share with him this is, this is not a legitimate buyer.
- [06:35]
Tammy Sims
You know, what comes to my mind is the instances that, that, that. That I have experienced with a scam artist is just exactly that. That if they don't get where they want to go with you, they will immediately go to other agents and someone will fall prey. So, you know, one of the things that you wanted to stress the importance of is sharing this with. With our colleagues in the industry. So tell me, tell me how you go about that now, knowing what you. What you know now.
- [07:08]
Jack Miller
Well, yeah, there's various ways. What have you done, Robert, as far as sharing?
- [07:13]
Robert Stutz
You mean with other agents?
- [07:14]
Jack Miller
With other agents, yeah.
- [07:15]
Robert Stutz
Oh, I'm not sure. I think about new agents sometimes that'll say they've been working with somebody for like three years. They know they're good, they're going to get a record deal, or they've got an inheritance coming, and you start asking questions, and they really haven't vetted these people at all.
- [07:31]
Jack Miller
But that's. You're talking about sharing with agents who already have that buyer. But Tammy's talking about really is how do we. How do we help agents before that happens? So one of the things that we. We can do and we have done is we have a way to post on our MLS notes to the agents in the marketplace, we don't use necessarily the buyer's name because we don't want to put ourselves in legal jeopardy. But we describe the profile of the buyer and we say if you think you've encountered this buyer with these traits, you may want to reach out to us for details.
- [07:58]
Robert Stutz
Our MLS will post like a, like a security note. Yeah. Sometimes, you know, before they bring the MLS actually up.
- [08:05]
Tammy Sims
Interesting. So I haven't seen that in my mls. I certainly do see it on the social media groups of, of real estate professionals.
- [08:12]
Jack Miller
And we can do that now. We didn't have that years ago, but we do have that avenue as well.
- [08:16]
Tammy Sims
Yeah, yeah. But Robert, you brought up another good point there. Agents who are maybe newer to the business or newer to that price point are often quick to jump at the opportunity. I know. I am hoping that my brother is not listening to this podcast. Right. He lives out of the country, so I'm hoping that the time zones throw him off. Oh, gosh, I guess that you can watch it on demand anytime. In any event, my brother was so excited, someone walked into our office and wanted to put an offer on a multimillion dollar condo that was within a block away. And my brother, who always wanted to be there, to be the one he jumped. Right. Showed it to her, was writing an offer and there were just odd contingencies and she needed to make, you know, of course, the same scenario. Right. You can't reach the private banker, it's the wrong time, that sort of thing. But she's dropping the names of the private banking institutions, and ultimately she didn't want to make the earnest money deposit. And then she backed out because she learned that the rules of the condo wouldn't allow her to have a fish tank. Right. Which is now something that I look for. So she backed out of that contract. And then she wanted to see another thing that was even more expensive and then another house. And finally when I got wind of this, I said, so Rob, have you seen the verification of assets? And he said, well, it's coming, it's coming, right? And I said, okay, I think you should, you should back off. And sure enough, she went to other agents and actually got somebody to put a property, a multimillion dollar under property, under contract. And it went all the way through to about a week before closing, so the sellers had actually moved out. And it was a bad thing. But she went outside, she went to other agents and was. Was pulling the scam all the way. And I sure wish that he had seen those warning signs a little earlier.
- [10:32]
Jack Miller
Well, Tammy Mitchell, something you said is just jogged my memory. One of the key things I think these scam artists look for, particularly ones, particularly some of the ones that have more nefarious motives, are empty houses where they assume the seller is more desperate because they've already moved out. They find out it's vacant homes that have been on the market for a long time before the market data. If a home has been the market unusually long period of time, they tend to be a target. And so does the agent and seller, of course. And also when you have a sluggish market overall in the luxury space that they seem to come out of the woodwork and sellers are so some sellers, I should say, are so desperate for action that they will overlook things even when we're telling them.
- [11:17]
Robert Stutz
Because they want it to be true.
- [11:18]
Jack Miller
Because they want it to be true. And that's one of the things that one of our colleagues said, one of the panel discussions. He said a lot of times our sellers want it to be true. And, and so they accept things at their face value. And a lot of agents do the same thing. And so some of these examples we're sharing are things from a long time ago. It would never happen today because we're hopefully a lot smarter than we used to be and we have a lot more protections in place, a lot more layers. But we learn trial by trial and error and trial by fire because the scam artists are constantly moving the bar, you know, because years ago they would ask for documentation and they would Photoshop documentation.
- [11:55]
Tammy Sims
Right.
- [11:56]
Jack Miller
You know, and they still do that. They still, still using AI or whatever to create false documentation. So you can't even rely what's sent to you without double verification.
- [12:06]
Tammy Sims
That's right.
- [12:07]
Jack Miller
One of the things that, that we some, sometimes it's not necessarily a sinister, you know, plot, but sometimes it's, it's just life. We had a couple one time working with an agent for, gosh, a year and a half of a newer agent, new and certainly new to the luxury space. Robert I had the listing and she wanted to show it new construction. So a new construction a lot of times will allow tours more easily because nobody lives in the home. There's no furnishings or private possessions or whatever. And so in the market was slow. And so she brings her buyers as an elderly couple. Yeah, first, first red flag on this one was you don't typically see empty nesters and elderly couples buying 10,000 square foot plus homes when it's just the two of them. Usually they're moving out of those homes and downsizing, not moving into them for the first time. But we allowed the tour and you, you gave the tour one more time.
- [13:03]
Tammy Sims
Yeah, Robert, I see you chuckling on that. So I'm curious, I'm curious about that.
- [13:08]
Jack Miller
Tell them about the, tell them who came to the tour on the elderly couple in Richland.
- [13:13]
Robert Stutz
Oh, yeah, well, all the grandkids.
- [13:15]
Jack Miller
Yeah.
- [13:15]
Robert Stutz
And kids. So we probably had a group of.
- [13:19]
Jack Miller
10, 15 people and they're going through and they're picking out rooms.
- [13:23]
Robert Stutz
Right. And the granddad is just loving it because he's having all this attention with his grandkids.
- [13:28]
Jack Miller
And so they came through a couple different times. Right.
- [13:31]
Robert Stutz
But after a while, it became apparent that this was just a way for him to spend time with his grandkids.
- [13:37]
Tammy Sims
Oh, my.
- [13:37]
Robert Stutz
I'm excited.
- [13:38]
Tammy Sims
Yeah.
- [13:38]
Jack Miller
And I asked, I asked the agent, I said, you said you had proof of funds. Can you send that to us? She says, yeah, she's actually, I knew it was coming, but I don't have it. But I'm getting the proof of funds. I said, I said that they live, do they live locally? They do. I said, terrific. Do you have their address? So she gave me their address. And so while she's securing proof of funds, I drove to the house where they live currently. And Tammy, it was the disparity between what they were looking at and where they live currently. There's no way this buyer was buying this house. And I came to the conclusion that they were utilizing this opportunity to spend time with the grandkids on this fantasy tour of living in a mansion. And I say that term because that's one of the key things we look for too, is a lot of these scam artists, particularly ones that have more. I use the word sinister early, and that's really what it is. Motives are really polished. And they, they try to learn the lingo and they try to, because they haven't lived that lifestyle, but they wanted that life and they think they know what that lifestyle looks like. And one of the things that we look for is terminology words like no one uses the word mansion because the buyer who's looking at this type of property, it's their home, it's not a mansion. Oftentimes they'll be, they'll really, they're really flashy. The scam arts are very flashy. Name dropping, famous people, name dropping scenarios that they've encountered with famous scenarios and people.
- [15:03]
Tammy Sims
So let's talk about name dropping for a second because while we learn from these experiences Every once in a while it sneaks up on us like it did between, actually, you and I, Jack, kind of recently, although you. You framed it with. With a. With a word of caution. But tell us what happened with that.
- [15:24]
Jack Miller
That was one where we got a call from a gentleman who said he was married to a famous country and pop star entertainer. I won't say her name, but he was describing great detail what he needed in this market in Nashville, and ironically, what he needed in your market, Tammy, as well. He's buying in both markets. I thought, well, this is terrific. You couldn't have any better, you know, interaction, have Tammy and I both doing our background checks. But again, it was a situation where he called. If I remember correctly, it was right before weekend.
- [15:53]
Tammy Sims
It was. And you were on your way out of town.
- [15:55]
Jack Miller
Out of town? That's right. It was a Friday afternoon. There's your red flag. He gave me all this great detail about his marriage, and she goes by a different name and than she does on stage and we've been married for so many years and blah, blah, blah. And I didn't have time to do the research, but I called you, Tammy said, hey, I've given him your name and number. Here's his information. But I'm very suspicious and here's why. So I've done no background checking yet, but we need to. And Tammy, then what did you do?
- [16:19]
Tammy Sims
Well, this is a, this is a great opportunity to share some resources. In this case, we had a phone number. And one of the things that is available in my MLS as a member of my board of Realtors, is access to forewarn F o r e w a r N And so I was able to look up the phone number and it registered to the name of the individual. Right, the name that he gave you, but it was here again to the address. It was registered to a mobile home park in a very, very low socioeconomic area of my town. And it wasn't even an owned mobile home park. Right. So couldn't even have been a very wealthy mobile home park owner, which. I actually have one of those clients, and he's very, very wealthy. But. But it was, it was pretty immediate and then just some googling and that sort of thing of the names and, and, and who that star's actual husband was. It was, you know, pretty sloppy job on that individual's part because there was so much available publicly. But you had to take the time. And so often we just get. We just get taken off guard, whether it's timing or whether it's Just opportunity. And we get so excited that sometimes we, we fail to, to follow through.
- [17:43]
Jack Miller
But at the same time, you know, here's a word of caution to our listeners. You know, Robert and I get calls routinely through the years from people who are completely legit. And you, so you have to take them at the word to some degree because you don't want to ask a famous athlete, an NFL player that everybody knows for proof of funds. It's insulting, you know, or you don't want to, you don't want to ask a famous country music singer that everybody knows who calls you directly. You know, I, I got a call.
- [18:15]
Robert Stutz
From, we got a, an 18 year old YouTuber that we thought, oh Lord, here we go again. However, he was completely legit.
- [18:23]
Jack Miller
Yeah, he taught guitar lessons on YouTube and he bought a four million dollar house, you know, and, but he's a YouTuber, of course, now. He did, he provided proof of funds. He provided proof funds. But we didn't dismiss him because of his age or because of the way he sounded. We got a call from, and Jamie, you know about this. We got a call from a young man on, when we had Kelly Clarkson's house list, a young man in Los Angeles with a Los Angeles phone number. He sounded way too young to possibly buy a $9 million property. But I entertained the call because you don't want to ask for proof of funds in the first, you know, two minutes. That's not going to work, obviously. But I entered the call and more we talked to him. When I asked him his last name and he said, Welk. I said, you're.
- [19:03]
Tammy Sims
That's right.
- [19:03]
Jack Miller
Are you by chance related to Lawrence Welk? And he laughed. He said, yeah, that's my grandfather. And so as he's talking, I'm doing the same thing. I'm googling, I'm looking at the family names, whatever, sure enough. And that ended up being one of the biggest series of transactions between them and people they referred to us since that time. They didn't purchase that home, but they purchased lots of other homes and commercial properties and introduced us to other members of the family. And it was, but we, we followed it through to the point where we needed proof of funds for listing brokers, other listing brokers, but we established the relationship first. So I think one of the tales here is you don't want to be dismissive of anybody because they don't meet all the obvious criteria. But at the same time, you just want to be cautious. At some point, even, even NFL player, a business manager will have to Provide proof of funds at some, somewhere along the line, but you don't want to run that potential buyer off because they come to some, because sometimes they'll come to the, to the table or to the call literally unprepared, because they're not business people, but they're people who have wealth and who have sincere interest.
- [20:15]
Tammy Sims
You know, I want to talk for a minute about language because it's intimidating for realtors to approach the subject no matter who it is, and especially if it's someone who is, as you say, famous, outwardly wealthy. But I think one of the things that we teach in our training course that is super important is changing that language, because proof of funds can be very offensive to someone. And so we like to refer to it as verification of assets. And if you spend that conversation, change the tone of the conversation such that it doesn't sound like you're being intrusive or that you don't believe them, but it's more about. It is a business transaction and you use something along the lines of, well, as you might imagine, in order to secure an appointment for a home of this price will be required to provide very verification of assets. So let's be prepared to do that before we, before we move further. And it's amazing just how the tone of that conversation changes. And I had a call one day from, from someone who said, hi, Tammy, I got your number from so and so who was a client and also a very good referrer to me in the upper tier. So I felt kind of comfortable about that. He said, so I'm here vacationing and there's a property that's caught my eye and I think that we, we might like to, to look at it and see about buying here. And I said, great, can I have the address? And so I pulled it up and I saw that it was a ten million dollar property. And you know, I'm, I'm, I'm also a human being and a real estate agent who's jumping at the opportunity, right? I was like 10 billion bucks. Oh my goodness. And so while I'm trying to like call my blood pressure, I'm thinking, okay, practice what you preach. And I, I shared that same scenario. And I said, that is a lovely house. Great, great water access there on Coffee Pot Bayou. And as you might imagine, in order to obtain an appointment, we'll need advance notice and we'll be required to provide verification of assets. And he said, oh, yeah, yeah, no problem. He said, I'm out for a bike ride now, but I'll Have a. I'll have a letter to you within a couple of hours and sure as shoot. Right. Verification of assets from his private banker for the property that we wanted to see. So this is another thing, because most people don't want to give up their bargaining power. Right. They don't want to share with you how much they're worth. And quite honestly, I don't care how much money you have as long as you have enough money to buy the thing that you want me to show them. So changing that whole conversation and dynamic can really be effective. And I have found that the people that have the money have no problem.
- [23:05]
Jack Miller
That's right.
- [23:06]
Tammy Sims
Providing it.
- [23:07]
Jack Miller
A lot of times when I'm talking to. If I'm the listing broker, we are, and I'm talking to a potential buyer, I'll text Robert and because I want to be. I want to be engaged in the conversation, but I'll text Robert and say, can you pull up this information on this particular person? I'm talking to them right now. See what you can find out. So be doing the due diligence while I'm talking to them. One of the things, Tammy, I've found this very helpful in terms of talking about language and the positioning the discussion to make people comfortable is if we're working with a new or potential buyer client, is that we will engage the potential client in a very authentic way. Because we don't have a buyer representation agreement. This is the beginning of a potential relationship. So we'll engage them in a very authentic way and we'll take them everything that they're telling us at face value and then will use the listing broker as the bad guy and will say, hey, this is terrific. I know you called on the listing that we had, it's new construction. But some of these listings you're interested in would be a terrific opportunity. We know about are currently, you know, have homeowners in the homes and those sellers and those listing brokers are going to need some sort of verification of assets. You don't need to provide a bank statement, but just something from your wealth manager or private banker just saying, hey, you have the means to make that purchase. I don't need it, but we're going to need it on file because they're going to be requesting it and I don't want you to not see all the available properties because someone requires that. So if we can get that now, then we can go and have it on file and we'll have it ready to go. When you say you want to see.
- [24:41]
Robert Stutz
Something that works well.
- [24:42]
Jack Miller
It works really well. And it puts the onus on the listing broker. But the reality is it lets us know we're not wasting our time either.
- [24:51]
Tammy Sims
Yeah.
- [24:52]
Jack Miller
And then one of one more funny ones we had recently. About two years ago. It's two and a half years ago, I got a call from. And we get a lot of these calls. It always cracks me up. Somebody I know sounds famous. I know I should know who they are, but I don't. And so I'm either. And then Robert didn't know either. And then one of them, I got a call two and a half years ago. This guy said, this is Jelly Roll. And I try not to stick her because I'm like, there's somebody named Jelly Roll. It sounded familiar. Oh, he has this whole conversation. I'm very familiar with him now. I know everything about him. He's a wonderful guy. Truly. I was very impressed by. But when that first conversation happened, I didn't know who Jelly Roll was. Honestly, I didn't know. I just knew that name sounded familiar. So I'm like. And so Robert. This is funny. Robert was. Builds race cars.
- [25:35]
Robert Stutz
Right.
- [25:36]
Jack Miller
Where were you? In the race car garage. Right.
- [25:38]
Robert Stutz
And my niece was there who heard me say Jelly Roll. And she lost her mind because she knew exactly who he was at that time.
- [25:44]
Tammy Sims
Yeah.
- [25:44]
Jack Miller
So the 20 and 30 year olds will we start. We start engaging our nephews and nieces and you know, do you know who that.
- [25:50]
Tammy Sims
Yes. God.
- [25:51]
Jack Miller
They're sending pictures and bio and background and. And then of course in his wife's name is. He's my wife Bunny. And I'm like Jelly Roll and bunny looking at 10 million $. You know, I'm so. But you know, we entertained it. We did our verification. And then I reached out to Jelly Roll's business manager and you know, it was a great opportunity and it was.
- [26:10]
Tammy Sims
All legit, but I had no idea. Jack. Right. Like you've never told me that.
- [26:15]
Jack Miller
Told you what?
- [26:16]
Tammy Sims
That you were working with Jelly Roll.
- [26:19]
Jack Miller
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [26:20]
Tammy Sims
Oh my goodness.
- [26:21]
Jack Miller
It was so funny. This is always a really pleasant surprise too. A lot of these guys. Did you see entertainment that you know, are terrific entertainers. He was very, he was very savvy and. And I was very impressed with him on the business side as well, getting to know him better. But I didn't know who he was when he first called. So it's, it's always very interesting, you.
- [26:39]
Tammy Sims
Know, for, for our listeners. I just have to remind everybody that. That Jack and Robert work in the Nashville area. Right. So we are all not quite as likely to get some of these types of calls. It's more than likely someone just flat out to be. To be wealthy and in the market versus someone who's dropping big names like that. But I didn't want to interrupt you, Jack, but I thought, that's okay, I'll.
- [27:06]
Jack Miller
Show the big name. This is really funny, Robert. This is not about scam Arts. Robert. We got a report for one of our. Again, it was a luxury listing with listing brokers and I couldn't show it. And Robert was out in the rural area where the house was. And the agent would not tell me who the buyer was without sign NDA. This preceded our ability to do electronic transaction. So we didn't have Bill to do this then. And he told me, the agent told me who he was. And I happen to know, I had heard this agent was working with a high profile buyer. I told Robert, I'm singing your way. The agent says he has verification on file. So I think we should go and show. It is a time, it's very slow. And I said, I'm not sure, but I think it's Reese Witherspoon. And so you tell me. But some of the introduction I thought was really good.
- [27:52]
Robert Stutz
I was at the house, but then Jack called and said he just saw her ex.
- [27:57]
Jack Miller
They weren't actually. They were still together.
- [27:58]
Robert Stutz
Oh, they're still married at the time, but now her ex going through the drive through at McDonald's with the kids. So we were convinced it was read.
- [28:04]
Jack Miller
What's Felipe, what's his name?
- [28:05]
Robert Stutz
Ryan.
- [28:06]
Jack Miller
Ryan. Felipe was her husband. Yeah. So I saw the McDonald's drive through. I said, robert, they're in Green Hills. I suspect they'll be 30 minutes late. And Robert got a call. My clients are running a few minutes late. So sure enough, they came over. And then this is again without verification assets. But we had an agent who said they had it on file, so.
- [28:23]
Tammy Sims
And that was an agent that you trusted?
- [28:24]
Jack Miller
An agent we trusted, yes. He was very.
- [28:27]
Tammy Sims
This again shows the importance of the relationships that we have with the other agents that work in. In the higher price points in our marketplace. Because there are some instances where you place that trust in your colleague to have done that. And if privacy is an issue, then, then there are reasonable times to protect someone's identity.
- [28:50]
Jack Miller
That's right. And what. You know, one of the things. Well, first of all, tell. Tell Tammy, if you would, how she introduced herself to you. I was very funny.
- [28:57]
Robert Stutz
A white SUV drives up and I'm thinking, oh, Lord, I Think it's her. Hope it's her. Anyway, she. The doors open and Reese gets out. He goes, hi, I'm Reese Witherspoon and Shake. And like, I don't know who she is.
- [29:08]
Jack Miller
Like, everybody, America knows who you are. But it's just funny, she introduced herself.
- [29:13]
Robert Stutz
She had her mother and it was. And her mother had recently had surgery, so she was moving kind of slowly, but she was so sweet.
- [29:18]
Jack Miller
It was great. Tammy, one of the things that we try to do, we alluded to this earlier a lot of the. Another red flag, by the way, if you're a listing broker, I think, is a lot of these scam artists will intentionally engage a new or newer agent, inexperienced. Or they'll look for an agent perhaps who is experienced but typically works in a much lower price range, who is so nervous about going into a high price point place and not knowing what the protocols are. And a lot of times, very well intentioned, very ethical agents will bring these people to the table. They were complete scam artists because they're afraid to ask for verification. They don't know how to ask for verification of assets. They don't even know how to review it and what's the appropriate protocol. And it's not that they're doing anything intentionally wrong. They just haven't been trained. And so one of the things we like to do is, is we'll, we'll go through a series of questions with the agent. And when real, when we come to the realization, and again, we can look on an MLS here, I suspect it's for many of our colleagues the same way across the country. In Canada, we can look on the MLS and we can look at production for agents we're not familiar with. And we can see they typically sell perhaps a $400,000 product, and now they're looking at a $7 million product. That's a reason to ask questions. And so we'll kind of coach them through, you know, did you ask the buyer for this or do you have this on file? Or what's your experience? You have other transactions with this client and try to get a framework how they were referred to them. And oftentimes we'll find they're a victim of a scam artist and they just don't know it. So coach them through the process. We don't ever want our colleague to feel in any way slight or demeaning. We want them to feel like we're trying to help them protect themselves. I wouldn't. Some of the people that we've encountered with, I Wouldn't have in my vehicle. And it scares me. They've been riding around with the, you know, a young female agent for the last year, you know, and it's kind of scary. I'll share a story. I'm going to share the one for Governor's Club. Yeah, we had a actual very experienced agent bring a buyer who was a surgeon at Vanderbilt University Hospital, very, you know, well known research hospital here. And she told me, she said he's a, he's a surgeon. She said he's young, he's just out of med school. She said he doesn't look the part, but that's how kids are these days, blah blah, blah. And she's got to give me all these disclaimers in advance. This agent, I absolutely loved and adored her. She passed away a few years ago, but, and she was the head of a brokerage here locally. And so she brings this buyer and I trusted because she said he's a surgeon. At Van. We don't have to verify if you know a surgeon at Vanderbilt, you just know who they are. And they, they, her firm has worked with a lot of the high profile Vanderbilt, both academic population and healthcare side. This guy comes to the, this home, very expensive home in a gated community and clearly was coming off as a scam artist. He was using the word mansion. He was showing all these pictures to us of his other houses he owned. And this, this double staircase reminds me of the staircase in my Miami estate. And, and he was so flashy, all the red flags, you know, because buyers don't do that. Not, not our buyers don't do that. And so I told once again the agents, I've got real concerns. He, she called me an hour after the showing and I told the seller my concerns and the seller shot me down. Even the seller said, you don't understand Jack. We've got kids that age. I'm sure he's legit. They just don't present the same way that we're, because we're older than we're not accustomed to. I said, guys, I'm not feeling good about this at all. You don't get excited. He wrote an offer. And that's what I told him. He's written an offer. We didn't have it yet. And so she calls me an hour later and says, I'm at Comp usa and she says, my client lost his laptop. Can you look through the house and see if he sees laptop laying around? And I, and I, I said, I just went through and looked every room there's no laptop here. I never saw a laptop. She said, well, he's buying one now and I guess he can't. He doesn't have his wallet on him. I said, tammy. Her name is Tammy. I said, tammy, don't. Don't buy this gentleman a laptop, please. I said, just don't. But anyway, the seller was convinced we had an offer coming. That night. We're watching the news and we see.
- [33:43]
Robert Stutz
About 15 minutes into the 10 o' clock news, there's a.
- [33:46]
Jack Miller
There's a headshot of this buyer on the news and he was showing the story was he went into a bar in Nashville, downtown on Music Row, and he was going to rent out the bar for a private party. And he was showing a copy of the contract he'd written on this four or five million dollar house, whatever it was, as proof of funds or verification of assets, to the bar manager to say, this is how legit I am. Let me show you what I've done. And here's the car I've purchased. And he's doing all this flashy stuff. And it wasn't, it was not an executed contract, was an offer. And somehow the bar manager was that. This is, this is why we could Google things. He finds out he's a scam artist or finds something looks like the guy when he calls him out on it. The guy stabbed him in the neck. The buyer stabbed the bar manager in the neck. Yeah. And tried to stab him. It did stab him and they arrest him for attempted murder. And I called the agent, I said, are you watching the news by chance? And she says, no. I said, I think you should. I just saw your client on the news for attempted murder. So this is not just about. Like you said at the intro of this podcast, there's a. Yeah. Layers to this.
- [34:51]
Tammy Sims
Yeah. So. Yeah, there are so many layers. So, so even, even the example that you gave of the guy who just was really enjoying this fantasy of getting to, to spend time with his grandkids. Right. That's, you know, that's a waste of all of our time and all of that. Yes. But the idea of some of these folks that want something else, even if they can't necessarily put their finger on it, maybe it's not robbery, maybe it's not the other. Maybe it's just to go flashing these things and pretend like they're going to rent out the entire bar. And I wonder if it's my favorite bar, by the way. We'll just have to see if their taste was good. But in any instance, any price Range, somebody can snap and that can be incredibly dangerous, incredibly dangerous to, to us, to our clients. You know, and even if somebody just snaps and, and decides to go on, you know, on a physical rampage and, and destroys priceless art and that sort of thing. So it does really go back to the idea that the, the, the stake, the stakes are high. The stakes are high.
- [36:03]
Jack Miller
We often recommend, when we have this part of the conversation in the context of scam artists, we often recommend the agents, if they're meeting somebody for the very first time, have that person meet them at the office. Have them meet you at a place where other people see them, see who they are. They have conversation with your front desk person or with your broker. You make introductions. That makes a scam artist really nervous.
- [36:24]
Tammy Sims
Absolutely. And then to the same degree, you talked about putting the, putting, putting the burden on the, the listing agent if you're representing a buyer. Well, it's super easy to put the burden on your broker and say my broker requires that, that we have a driver's license, a copy of driver's license on file.
- [36:39]
Jack Miller
I on here as well.
- [36:41]
Tammy Sims
In the luxury buildings that I show property in, I often have to leave my business card.
- [36:48]
Robert Stutz
Yep.
- [36:49]
Tammy Sims
With the front desk concierge in order.
- [36:51]
Jack Miller
We have to leave driver's licenses.
- [36:53]
Tammy Sims
Yeah, that's what I mean.
- [36:54]
Jack Miller
Yeah, that's a good point too. By the way. You. We could, if someone's looking at a high rise condo, because we don't have, we have a lot of high rises here.
- [37:01]
Tammy Sims
Also.
- [37:01]
Jack Miller
We're representing one of the newest projects, but not to the degree that you guys have, obviously on the waterfront. But that's another strategy we could employ. Is, is even if it's not the, it's probably not the policy of the concierge desk. But our buyers don't know that. We could tell our buyer be prepared to bring your driver's license because they'll need a copy of your driver's license. The concierge has to admit us into the building.
- [37:23]
Tammy Sims
Oh, absolutely. And wouldn't that be great? And, and, and I, and, and I said business card, but I did mean driver's license. So we were on the same page. But, but how about this? So I make it a point, point to have great relationships with the concierges at the buildings in my marketplace, particularly those in, in, in my downtown farm area. And, and if you were to be able to, to, to give kind of a, a heads up if I ever give you my client's driver's license, that's just something that I don't feel particularly comfortable.
- [37:57]
Jack Miller
Yeah. Or let them know in advance we're going to be coming today. I know you don't require the buyer driver's license, but I'm going to ask you to ask for it. This is the reason why.
- [38:05]
Tammy Sims
Interesting. Yeah. Yeah.
- [38:07]
Jack Miller
I'll tell you, this is another scenario, Robert, that we've encountered Twice. Yeah, twice. And I don't want to come off in any way sound as sexist to me, but I think there's a. I think there's a theme and a very intent strategy here that because I've seen it more than once, I've heard of it other times too. We've had two different scenarios where apparently very wealthy older men have courted younger agents and engaged into relationships with younger female agents. And we've had two different scenarios where agents thought they were marrying a really wealthy guy and they bring the buyer to the table as their fiance. And when you've got a very legitimate agent, you don't seem to ask as many questions because you're assuming they know their partner. And that's happened to us twice.
- [39:05]
Robert Stutz
The other time ended up on the news again.
- [39:07]
Jack Miller
That's right, the first. The first one did, right. Yeah. We had one that Robert worked with at this junction. Probably say name was the first name. I don't know who it is. Clay. Yeah. Clay was dating or engaged to a good friend of ours who was an agent. Been aged for at least 10, I think five or 10 years in the marketplace. She worked in a. As a. In a model home representing a production builder, lower end product. And she had a fiance. Fiance who was a very wealthy man of God as she put it. They met in church. So she met him in church. But we're comfortable because that's where they met in singles program, started to quit the business. She was going to quit the real estate business. And the reason she called us because she wanted. He told her he wanted her to have the same experience that other buyers could have where she could have her own agent helping her. And she was working a price range she wasn't familiar with anyway. And so she called me, Robert and asked us to show them properties. And so we were working them as a buyer. And what had tell them about getting the earnest money?
- [40:05]
Robert Stutz
Oh, he kept giving me the runaround. I would, I would be here, he would be there, vice versa. And I probably chased him down four or five times around town but never quite met up with him or got any kind of earnest money.
- [40:16]
Jack Miller
He wrote the contract for multi million dollar home that she had Seen but had never discussed buying it with her. And when I told her we couldn't get the earnest money, she said, for what? I said to Clay not tell you he bought a house. She said, no, he bought a house without telling me. And I told. So this is all new to her. So I said, we've been trying to earn somebody check for several days now. He keeps. He keeps dodging Robert, telling Robert to be here a certain time to pick it up, and he's not there. And so ultimately you called him. Yeah, yeah. He. I was just cutting the chase on this because it's a long story, but ultimately what happened with, with Clay is they went into contract, didn't get. Never could get earnest money. The contract was voided because of the lack of earnest money. They went on their merry way. We felt like he was a scam artist. She stayed in a relationship with him for some degree of time, and at some point in time, after he had convinced her they had all these businesses he was going to sell, he got $50,000, this is 18 years ago, $50,000 of money from her bank account to kind of tie things over until he sold off the business to pay her back and they disappeared. And it was reported on the news.
- [41:20]
Robert Stutz
Locally that he had drowned.
- [41:22]
Jack Miller
He drowned in Old Hickory Lake on a fishing accident with his nephew or somebody. Nephew survived and he drowned. And then on the news about a year later, we saw his picture again. They found him down in your market, Tammy, once again alive and well under a pseudonym, collecting a multi million dollar insurance fraud.
- [41:41]
Tammy Sims
Oh, my goodness. There is something going on between our marketplaces, I think. Right. But I want to. While we. While we have still just a. A minute or two, I wanted to talk about a comment that you made early on that was how you bridge that gap when you're just starting an initial conversation with someone and before it's the time when you really want to pursue getting verification of assets. Right. You're just getting to know one another. You haven't set a time to go show anything. I will tell you now, I love the idea that we have a more formal process nationwide for engaging with clients before we show them property. Right. I think that's half the battle. But for members of the Institute, they have access to a tool called wealthengine. And Wealth Engine is an aggregator of data on the wealthy that typically is utilized by the financial services industry and major nonprofits. But there's more than 20 million individuals in that database, and any of any of the institute members can look up someone using the the contact information that they have and to it it's not a substitute for a verification, but it gives enough of a footprint to know if somebody wants to see a multimillion dollar house and they don't have a profile there, it could be fine. But it's reason to ask more questions and to be, to be cautious. And I think you've, you've mentioned a number of times red flags and gut instinct. And I think it's so important that we, that we listen to those instincts.
- [43:19]
Jack Miller
Tammy, I'll tell you something else too kind of related to our topic today. There are buyers out there again in the luxury market that we've encountered various times through our 28 years together, Robert, working together that are very sincere. They know they have significant income, but they don't understand the whole picture. They're not a legitimate buyer. And here are the examples. One is there are people who win lawsuits who don't come from wealth, but they just want a multimillion dollar lawsuit. And oftentimes they don't understand it because they want a $10 million lawsuit. They're not getting $10 million. And so when that person calls on the $10 million house, their $10 million lawsuit, you know, we have to, we, we, first thing we do is we ask to who their attorney is and we reach out to their legal team because we need to understand the timing of the release of the funds and how this is going to play out. And we have run into that several times where they, they may want a 10 million dollar lawsuit, but they're going to get 2 million dollars as far as their liquid ass, you know, liquid funds. And, and they don't understand that. So they're legit in terms of their really but wanting to buy. And they know they have money coming. They don't understand the process. The same with musicians in our market. We have a lot of musicians who get record deals and they know they've got a major record deal, but they don't unders, you know, we, we talk to the business manager, understand this is a brand new artist with a brand new record deal. And, and oftentimes the business manager will tell us, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's, let's slow this down a little bit. Let me talk with them. I'll get back to you.
- [44:54]
Tammy Sims
Yeah.
- [44:55]
Jack Miller
And, and athletes and then lottery.
- [44:59]
Tammy Sims
Yes, yes, we had one in our, our marketplace was a holdout of the top floor of a, a brand new construction condominium that, that, that just closed. Actually I saw it close yesterday. But the, the rest of the Building closed. And I called the agent who represented the developer, who's colleague of mine and I said, tell me what's up. I see, I see 30 out of 31 of the units closed and the one that's missing is the top unit. And she said, oh, the lottery winner. And now in this case it turned out it was okay, but he, he had a different personality type. But I didn't mean to interrupt but that, no, no, no lottery thing, it comes up.
- [45:37]
Jack Miller
So these are all real, real people with legitimate scenarios. They don't understand the financial piece. Another one, this, this is one that, oh my goodness, this is more common. This probably most common scenarios is wealthy individuals going through divorces. They don't, I mean we had an unvandable surgeon who has divorced his wife with divorces was pending, it was processed doors had a new girlfriend, wife's not happy about it and froze. She froze the assets. We've seen that happen at least twice, maybe three times where, where spouses have frozen assets. So they think they have this money, you know, this disposable that they can use and they don't have access to it and sometimes won't have access to and don't know it yet. And so just because somebody you can verify somebody is yeah, they are a surgeon, a heart surgeon or they are whatever on the Internet doesn't mean they have the funds. And so when you hear words like well I'm going through divorce, my new, you know, fiance, blah blah blah, that should be a red flag. You need to be talking to an attorney, a wealth manager, some business, somebody that understands how this is going to all play out because that can get really. We had, we have had several where we're the listing broker and they put a non refundable, we required a non refundable deposits to protect our client because oh yeah, we got the money and they did not and they could not close. And we had one house we sold three times to the times didn't go through because of divorce situation. So it's so again they're not, they weren't scam artists, they just got blindsided. But this is their one time to experience and to experience this and we get to experience it on unfortunately on a broader scale to where we know these are things questions we should ask.
- [47:26]
Tammy Sims
That's right. And what a learning curve it is in this industry. And it's interesting too because you think about the number of agents that really get their feet wet in the upper tier, right. Like there's one career path where you're selling bread and butter prices, and then you move up in that way, and that's a whole different scenario. And then one where for whatever circumstance, you just land right in it. And there's a lot of lessons to be learned along the way. And so I just encourage all of our listeners to pay attention to your gut, to talk to other colleagues to really make sure that you're doing your due diligence for your own protection as well as for sellers. And so as we reach our final minutes on this, I know we could keep talking all day. So, Robert, Jack, any final thoughts before we wish our audience farewell.
- [48:28]
Robert Stutz
Price range? Sometimes we'll get a call from someone and we'll ask what section of the market they're looking for, and they'll say 1.5 to 8 million.
- [48:36]
Jack Miller
Right.
- [48:37]
Robert Stutz
Which is a huge red flag. They should be more focused and know exactly what they're looking.
- [48:40]
Jack Miller
Or they'll say, oh, you know, money's no object. You know, whatever we don't have, we don't have a ceiling. Whatever's out there, we want. If there's no target amount of how much money somebody has. We all know people create a budget, they have a certain price range. To Robert's point, it should be a more of a narrow price range or it's a red flag. We've seen that happen a lot, too, because again, someone who's never experienced wealth and doesn't have wealth thinks that wealthy people talk that way. And they don't.
- [49:08]
Tammy Sims
Yeah, they don't.
- [49:09]
Jack Miller
That way. I think, in closing. I think, I think you meant. Made the point already, Tammy, is trust your gut and be careful. We, again, we want to make sure we. That everybody's welcome to the table. We don't want to ever be discriminatory in any sense. But as Robert has often said, the one thing you can discriminate on the.
- [49:36]
Robert Stutz
Basis of ain't got no money.
- [49:37]
Jack Miller
The basis of ain't got no money. That we can do. And so as long as. And you got to treat everybody equally, that's a big deal. So remember that if we. If you're getting calls from buyers, regardless of what they're driving, what they look like, we have to screen them the same way. And so I think the same questions should be asked, no matter who it is, is calling the property. And I always tell my sellers, the exception that rule is if they come directly to me, I'm treating everybody the same way. If they've got an agent, if it's an agent I know well, I've got a history with who works in luxury space frequently. I trust my colleague. They know how to, to, you know, take care of that process on their own. I trust them. But if it's an agent who's new to the luxury space, I assume from the get go there's gonna be an education piece here where I'm gonna help that agent ask the right questions and hopefully they'll learn because I learned people help me. Yeah, I've mentioned on this program several times before Rick, Rick French. I love him. And when I started walking to a space and I'm not comfortable, I call Rick. Rick is okay to ask these questions. And there's. I hadn't done that in many years, but because now we're comfortable. But it's good to have mentors and it's good to be a mentor to somebody learning that space.
- [50:51]
Tammy Sims
That is absolutely correct. So I am sad that we have reached the end of our time, but I want to thank all of you so much for joining us on this episode of A State of Mind, the art of selling luxury real estate. If you're interested in learning more about the institute, you can find more at luxury home marketing.com if you like what you just heard, please share it with a friend. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review this podcast. And if you've got a hot topic that you'd like us to discuss in a future podcast, feel free to let us know. Send an email to infoluxuryhomemarketing.com thanks to Jack and to Robert and thanks to you all for listening.