A house listed “for sale by owner” on Zillow for $10,200 saw a lot of interest from would-be buyers — except their house worth $1.2 million, and the real owners knew nothing about it until friends showed them the listing.
Jamey and Lauren Bertram own a 5,300-square-foot, five-bedroom ranch house in Kansas City that a third party recently listed on Zillow, complete with pictures, without their knowledge, according to The Kansas City Star.
Jamey Bertram told The Star on Friday that the house had “been hacked on Zillow” and that he had spent three days trying to fix the issue with “zero help from Zillow.”
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After getting past Zillow’s fraud detectors by setting the price of the home to its $1.2 million market value, the third-party scammers decreased the price to $10,200 and stated that the price was so low because they were trying “to bless a family” and get a tax break.
“Once a year we sell one or a few of our homes to first-time buyers for under $25,000,” the listing read. “This is done to bless a family or individual that needs it, but also as a tax write-off for us.”
When interested buyers called the number in the listing, they were told to send a refundable $200 deposit for a tour.
Bertram called the incident “a hot mess” and said he found out about the listing when friends emailed him about it. People were also just “showing up” at his front door and asking to see the house.
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Bertram and his wife bought the home in 2019 for close to $1 million.
Zillow said it had taken the listing down on Friday.
A Zillow study published last month showed that home prices in Kansas City were rising quickly, with the average home value at $236,292 — nearly 7% higher than last year.
