Southern California Realtor Associations Plan Publicity Campaign To Heighten Public Awareness Of Real Estate Fraud

In Southern California, The Californian reports:

• The stepped-up efforts of two Realtor associations to fight real estate fraud will include a novel twist: a varied publicity campaign aimed at buyers, sellers, agents, authorities and the news media, representatives of the groups said last week. The efforts are not entirely new - directors of Southwest County's Realtor group began warning local brokers of a rash of suspicious transactions in 2005. [...] Those transactions have since sparked a rash of lawsuits, an investigation by securities regulators and administrative action by the California Department of Real Estate [Editor's Note: but no criminal prosecutions].

• Still, leaders of the Realtor groups - with many others in the local real estate industry - say they have grown frustrated at the pace of the criminal investigations. And evidence of ongoing fraud is becoming a stain on the industry, they say. "We're going to do everything we can to shine as bright a light on this problem as we possibly can, partially with the hope that those with authority to act will act," said John Giardinelli, a Canyon Lake attorney who advises the Southwest Riverside County Association of Realtors and the Inland Valley Association of Realtors in the Riverside-San Bernardino area.

For more, see Realtor group puts the word out - again.