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As state borders begin to open around Australia, real estate agents are likely to see an influx of potential clients. Clients may be looking for sea or tree changes as a result in the growth of remote working. No matter what your client needs, it is important then to make sure that you have the technology and expertise to service them well.
With increased use of technology to buy and sell homes, real estate agents must be aware of the risks. Cybercrime is reported every ten minutes in Australia, which means property funds have the attention of scammers.
Harcourts CEO Victoria and Tasmania Tony Morrison shared that most of the Harcourts agencies based in Tasmania and Victoria, have been reporting growth in fraud attempts from 18 months ago.
“We have really noticed how much more it is happening, and unfortunately, some of the attempts have been successful and we have had several agencies that have found themselves seriously out of pocket.
There can be big sums involved in transactions, and criminals are aware of that, so that is why we, as an industry, are being targeted. Coupled with this, when it comes to an exchange, there are lots of different parties involved, so the chances of something going wrong increases.”
However, there are ways to protect your clients from scammers. Securexchange aims to cyber-proof the property process through the use of a collaborative and secure workspace that all parties involved in the deal can communicate and share documents. Rather than sending account details or contracts out via email, where they could be intercepted by hackers – all parties are invited into the workspace to complete tasks associated with a property exchange.
Real Estate Agent Ashley Miles from Red Property in Manly was an early adopter of the Securexchange platform and says he’s loving it.
“We started using Securexchange to share trust account details. Before we would send an email or text and then call up to verify. So, nothing could get done unless we could physically get hold of someone on the phone to confirm. We don’t need to do that now. As well as transferring money, we can share contracts with the lawyers, so they don’t have to ring up looking for it,” says Mr Miles.
Join the growing network of agents, conveyancers and solicitors protecting their clients with Securexchange.
