[outworlder]

> Even if they let you see the place, IT MAY BE A SCAM. Proceed with caution and make sure the person actually own the place/has the right to rent the apartment.

This part was mind-blowing. I would never considered that someone would show an apartment they don't actually own.

[walrus01]

This has been a thing in Vancouver for a while now. Scammers would rent fully furnished luxury apartments on airbnb for a couple of weeks, and "show" them to potential tenants as if they were the owner or a person needing to sublet, signing leases, collecting first month+deposit payments from like a dozen different people.

Of course this only duped the most gullible, since nobody should be paying rent+deposit for a $3000/month apartment in cash. Then of course when it came to be end of month and time to move in, the scammer would be long gone.

[Spooky23]

Real estate is a very fragile system with all sorts of crazy scams. Deed fraud is a thing — people buy houses and incompetent banks write loans on houses that aren’t for sale.

There were a bunch of cases in Brooklyn a few years ago, some were related to corrupt officials in the Surrogate/Probate court and deceased persons property. Others were grifts affecting unoccupied properties. The system isn't really designed to stop these sorts of frauds.

[Gibbon1]

Friend of mines neighbor lives in a rental with an absentee landlord. Someone stole the landlords identity, took out a homeowners loan on the place, then wired the money to a bank in South America. They found out because real estate vultures started knocking on their door.