Over the past two decades, internet sites such as Property24, Facebook Marketplace and estate agency websites have replaced the likes of newspaper classifieds and estate agency window advertisements as the most popular ways to buy and rent property in South Africa.
And while this enables would-be buyers or tenants to cast a wider net to find their dream home, it has also given rise to increasingly sophisticated property scams.
These scams often involve fraudsters posing as legitimate property owners or real estate agents and using online platforms to advertise properties that do not exist or are not available to rent or purchase.
While the anonymity of the internet has made it much easier to facilitate these scams, some will go so far as to meet unsuspecting buyers and renters in person to seem more legitimate, only to vanish once the funds have been transferred.
Here are five popular property scams to watch out for:
1. Fake rental listings and agents
In this instance, fraudsters will advertise a rental listing online (often at a very attractive rate) and wait for a would-be tenant to make contact. They will make excuses for why the property cannot be viewed in person but emphasise that there is lots of interest and ask the tenant to pay a small deposit or application fee to secure their place, before taking the listing offline and disappearing with the money.
This may sound far-fetched, but in a highly competitive rental market such as Cape Town, some tenants are…
