Wire fraud rears its ugly head and strikes one of Karen's clients.
Karen and Kevin dive deep into the dark underworld of property taxes when they uncover shenanigans being played by a new home builder aimed at increasing the tax assessments on houses that had already been sold.
After enlisting the help of a local journalist, they end up face to face with a surprisingly helpful representative of the Harris County Tax Office.
Where have we been? That's a good question. Listen to this episode to find out what caused our long break from the show and what you can expect for the future.
It's been a long time since we published our last episode. Too long. In today's episode we catch you up on the series of unfortunate events that have kept Karen and Kevin away from the mics for so long.
Karen closed on a transaction she's been working on for quite some time, and shares the ups and downs of the transaction. Listen as she shares the blow by blow of the negotiation and how it played out.
Having an agent who will negotiate hard for you and protect your negotiating position is crucial, and so many agents throw their clients under the bus in the hopes of closing the transaction quickly.
In this supersized episode, we talk about what we did leading up to and in the aftermath of the arrival of Hurricane Harvey.
I don't think we need much more of an introduction than that.
This week, we rebroadcast for you our mutual favorite episode, our rebuttal to the Adam Ruins Everything episode on real estate.
Since Kevin is traveling internationally, we are broadcasting this "best of" episode from our archives.
We will return next week with a new original episode.
While this podcast is primarily focused on real estate, we do take time to tell stories about our lives from time to time. In this episode, we share the struggles we have had this year with our kindergartener dealing with a bully at school. We thought it would be helpful to share this story if for no other reason than to give other parents the benefit of our experiences, and some things to look for with your own kids.
We also chatted a bit about Karen's new fitness regimen, which she's having great success with, and we take a moment to celebrate Kevin's latest flag football adventures in his work league.
Just imagine it: You wire your money to the title company as instructed the day before you buy your dream home. You show up to closing, and they ask you, "Where's your down payment?" You think this must be some kind of silly joke, so you say, "You mean the massive wire I sent you yesterday wasn't enough?"
"Wire? I checked a few minutes ago, and we didn't receive a wire from you, but I'll go double check." The serious look on the escrow agent's face tells you this isn't a joke.
"Yes," you say, "I sent it to the updated account you asked me to use via email yesterday."
"... I didn't send you any updated wire instructions yesterday."
After a few eternal minutes of double checking both on your end and on the title company's end, it's clear that you did indeed send the down payment, but you did not send it to the title company. Instead, you sent it to an overseas thief who has now disappeared with your money. How could this happen?
This has been a growing problem in the real estate industry that was highlighted by ABC news station KOMO in Seattle.
What can you do to prevent this?
As an agent:
As a consumer:
Don't get screwed, friends!
If you want to know what Phil Dunphy, roller derby, and dental work have in common, listen to the show this week.
Customer service seems to be a dying art in our increasingly digitally connected, yet personally disconnected world. Kevin and Karen talk about some recent customer service experiences they've had to illustrate why excellent customer service is one of the single most important ingredients to a successful real estate transaction.
The topic of inspectors has come up in past episodes, so we thought we'd delve a little deeper into the topic with this episode by sharing the top 10 issues that come up during inspections.
After hearing this episode, you will understand the great benefit an inspector brings to the table.