Avoid automated texts asking about selling your home, real estate experts say

PITTSBURGH — With a seller’s market still very much in play here in Pittsburgh, homeowners are looking to make big money on the sale of their home, but are also up against attempts to cheat them out of thousands.

Real estate professionals and marketers have been sending out text messages asking you if you’re going to sell your house and offering to buy.

Avoid these texts.

Ryan Brown, broker and owner of River Point Real Estate, says he’s had several people reach out to him about the legitimacy of these texts.

So what are they? Brown says,

“A lot of these are automated texts that go out to thousands of homeowners, and they’re basically fishing for someone that wants to sell their home and generally attempting to buy it for substantially under market value.”

So taking the bait from these marketers likely means you’re going to leave thousands on the table by selling your home this way.

Brown says that’s not the case for the real estate professionals who sent you the text. “Many of the people marketing for that are trying to do what’s called wholesaling: buy it and resell it for a higher dollar amount.” Brown says while most people are skeptical of this phishing attempt, these texts do turn a profit. “You have to remember, if you’re sending this out to tens of thousands of people, you need less than 1% response rate to be successful.”

If you’re hoping these texts will stop coming, that’s likely not the case, so the best advice is to delete them.

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