Is Your Sacramento Realtor a Go Fund Me Source?

Never thought I’d get a call from a potential seller asking me to be her Go Fund Me source. Partly it’s because I’m so easily found online. If you’re looking for a Sacramento Realtor in Google, I’m all over the place. That’s because I sell real estate all over the place. My map of dots for homes sold pretty much blankets at least four counties in the greater Sacramento metropolis. On top of this, I answer my phone, so I’m a sitting duck for scammers, telemarketers and weirdos.

The trick is to sort out the screwballs from the real sellers. Since everybody is a little bit crazy, and I’m not exempting myself from that definition, it can be tough. But generally you know when things don’t add up, do not make sense. Like the caller from yesterday hoping to land a Go Fund Me Source. She began the conversation by describing her home in the Vineyards, saying she purchased it from Lennar Homes and now wanted to sell.

I asked for her address. She was not ready to give me the address. Hmmm . . . that’s odd. Then she launched into a story about how broke she was and she desperately needed $4,000. If she got that money, she could then sell her home in the Vineyards. And she wanted me to sell it, but she couldn’t give me the address. She would prefer that I give her $4,000 and get it back when I sell the home.

The only piece of information she gave me was her name, which I already had on my Caller ID. Sadly, I explained real estate agents are not lenders, we are Realtors. We are not licensed to make loans to our clients. It’s not legal. Plus, it would be up to the broker, and the broker is not turning into a Go Fund Me source. I suggested she call a hard money lender who could probably lend her $10,000 and secure that loan to her house. Or, borrow against credit cards with cash advances.

No, she did not want to borrow money from a person she did not know like a hard-money lender. She also did not want to use her house as security. Yet, she’s talking to me, and I am a stranger, yah? I entered her name into the tax rolls, and no such person owned a home in Sacramento. Not in the Vineyards, not anywhere. No Living Trust with that name, either. No records even came close.

Finally, the only thing I could say was I could not help her. I figured if I repeated it enough times, she would hang up. But that didn’t work. Was I on Candid Camera? Do people view agents as money bags? No idea. Hanging up was the only thing to do, hey, I gotta go, bye. I don’t pay to take listings. Nobody but a fool would even consider that approach. Still, I felt sorry for her.