the wasserblawg

Realtors - What would you think of representing an all cash buyer who is moving his family to Chicago from out of the Country, and who needs your urgent  help to find a suitable home? Sounds nice, right?  He needs you to send him listings ASAP as he really needs to move quickly. Even better. Oh yeah, one more thing, he wants to wire you money, lots of it  now, so that he can have it ready for the closing. Still interested? If you are, better take a deep breath before reading on. This is the script to a  fairly elaborate - and pervasive scam that is being perpetrated on unsuspecting Realtors all across the country. I have seen it now twice in just the last three weeks. One agent was approached via Trulia. The other received a lead directly from the brokerage's web site. More details about the scam can be found in this Trulia posting , and this Orlando, Florida lawyer's blog . The first time this came up, I advised the inquiring agent to take extra care to try to verify th

Some news is (finally) starting to leak out regarding those inevitable Cook County property tax bills everyone has been waiting for. We all, of course, know that local property tax bills are sent out in two installments. The first installment, a/k/a the estimated bill, is always taken as a percentage of the previous years levy. Formerly half of the prior years taxes, the most recent bill demanded 55% of the last known taxes, owing to a recently changed state law. The County, it seems, needs more money sooner. A prior blog post alerted readers to this change earlier this year. The second, of final installment of the tax bills is supposed  to get mailed out in August, providing a theoretical  due date of September 1st. These bills are very often mailed much later. Last year they went out in November  and were due December. There has been a good deal of rumor mongering and speculation about the timing of the second installment 2009 tax bills. Harken back to this report in the Daily