Look out for Fraud in real estate. The FBI place mortgage fraud at somewhere between $986 Million and $4.2 Billion for 2006. Gee, is there a lender out there who’s not telling the truth? How do you get to that big a range? Let’s be reasonable and split the difference. That number equals $2.593 billion dollars lost per year by lenders relating to some type of mortgage fraud. Two years ago, they (a mortgage lender association) admitted to losses just over a billion. Any way you slice it $2.593 Billion is a whopping number! Somewhere along the way, some consumer has lost money in the deal.

If you weren’t a victim of the specific fraud scheme, you may own stock in the lending company. If you don’t own stock, you’re probably paying higher interest rates because of those losses (that lenders don’t entirely admit). If none of the above items affected you, you may live in such a neighborhood where prices have gone down (lowering your equity) causing you to lose money. In any of those cases, fraud brings down values.

Do your research! Get an instant value estimate or check out a fraud detection report, or both.