Real estate text scams: How to help your clients avoid scam texts

August 1, 2023

Most of us, unfortunately, have encountered a real estate text scam or two.

If you’re a real estate agent, that probably frustrates you. You’re running an honest business and (legally) using texts to promote it and these scam texts make people lose faith in real estate SMS messages. 

American consumers lost $330 million to text scams in 2022, up from $131 million and $86 million in 2021 and 2020, respectively.

The best thing you can do, both to build up strong relationships with your clients and to restore some trust in real estate text messaging, is to let your audience know about these scams and help them steer clear. 

We’re going to talk about what these scams are, which ones are prevalent right now, and how to keep your clients safe and aware.

Real estate text scams are fraudulent texts that are designed to get money or personal information from the recipient. 

One of the difficult things about real estate scam texts is that they continually change as people stop falling victim to them. 

As of right now, the common real estate text scams are:

• Unsolicited text requests to buy your home
• Unsolicited texts asking if you’d like to sell your home
• Messages from someone named “Sylvia” checking if you still own your home at a certain address and if you’re planning to sell it
• Supposed home buyers asking for your bank account information so they can wire you money
• A request for alternate bank account details because a wire didn’t go through
• Texts offering a loan to help you avoid foreclosure in exchange for temporary ownership of the deed to your home
• An “identity verification” text asking for a photo of your driver’s license and social security card

You’re in this business to help your clients buy and sell their homes in a legal, comfortable, and advantageous way.

Fulfilling that goal means helping your audience recognize and avoid real estate scam texts like the ones we just talked about. 

How do you do that? It’s entirely up to you, but you could:

• First and foremost, inform your clients that you will never, ever text them asking for their personal or financial information.
  
  [AGENCY NAME] won’t text you asking for personal or financial details.

• Give your subscribers one or two ways to contact you if they receive a suspicious message to confirm that it’s not from you (like calling you on your cell number).
  
  If you received a suspicious message claiming to be from us, call us at [NUMBER] or email us at [EMAIL ADDRESS] to verify.

• Send out anti-scam education in the form of videos, links to blog posts, or PDFs.
  
  We’ve released a new YouTube video filling you in on the latest text scams so you can stay safe. Check it out at [LINK].

• Text a basic alert when a new scam pops up and describe it to your contacts so they can be on the lookout.
  
  Be aware: A new scam is going around offering foreclosure loans. If you receive a text like this, ignore it.

Once you know what you want to send, just pop your message into the Campaigns tab through SimpleTexting to let all of your contacts know about new scams or create an Inbox template to quickly address individual concerns as they come in.

Fortunately, although we’re talking about text scams, the fact remains that text messaging is one of the most spam-free communication channels out there, because of the laws and regulations in place to keep it that way.

To successfully run a real estate texting program, you’ll need to be in compliance with those rules and regulations. While there’s a lot to staying in compliance, the top three things to remember are: 

• You must have express written permission to text your contacts. You can easily get this permission with a compliant opt-in method like a keyword or web form.
• You must let your subscribers know how to opt out of future messages from you.
• You must identify your brand in your first text and let contacts know how often you plan to text them.

This is an example of a compliant opt-in web form I made in SimpleTexting’s platform. 

Aside from those practices, you can also word your texts carefully so they don’t look spammy. That means avoiding words and phrases like:

• FREE 
• $$$
• OPEN NOW
• CLAIM YOUR PRIZE
• DON’T DELETE
• Contact us immediately
• Payment failed
• Not spam
• Attention

Having worked in the text marketing industry for years, I always say that if you wouldn’t open it yourself, don’t send it to your clients.

Now you’ve got the concepts and a plan of action, but you may still be looking for some inspiration. Here are a few example texts you can send to your clients to keep them safe from real estate scam texts.

“[NAME OF AGENCY] will never contact you by text asking for your personal details or financial information. If you receive a text claiming to be from us that you’re not sure about, call our office.”

• “Steer clear of text scams by following the key steps in this video! Feel free to text us with any questions.”
• “Worried about SMS scams now that the housing market is dipping? We wrote this easy blog article to help you identify and avoid text scams [link]”

• “Hey [NAME OF AGENCY] family! Be on the lookout. If you get a text from someone named Sylvia asking to buy your home, don’t engage with it.”
• “We’ve been hearing from some of our clients that texts are going out offering foreclosure relief loans. Don’t open or respond to these texts.”

“Got a strange text from someone claiming to represent our company? Call us at [NUMBER] or reach out to [AGENT NAME] at [NUMBER] to verify.”

Still got questions? So do a lot of other homeowners and realtors. Here are the most common questions we get about real estate scam texts.