Land Fraud Attempts Rampant At Same Iowa City Lot, Realtor Speaks Out

The same vacant infill lot in a desirable Iowa City, Iowa, neighborhood has been the target of more than 10 land fraud attempts since early this year.

The third of those scams involved Adam Pretorius — a Realtor at Lepic Kroeger Realtors — which closed more than $35 million in 2024 sales and $100 million-plus in the past three years.

Adam Pretorius

“I got a call in January, followed up by an email of a prospective seller that was interested in selling their infill lot,” Pretorius told HousingWire. “Of course, infill lots are heavily desired. You’re in an established neighborhood, you won’t have construction around you, so the lot itself is very appealing.”

The contact presented himself as a medical professional living out of state.

“He told me (the lot) was priorly listed and canceled,” Pretorius said. “The email [included a] first and last name, which matched up to the deed.”

Red flags were there — but subtle. First, the “owner” used a Hotmail account. Next, the number was unlisted.

“The number came up unlisted, but that’s not uncommon for medical professionals who I work with, who just want to keep their number off the public records,” Pretorius said. “So yeah, it threw a small flag. But everything else seemed pretty standard.”

Pretorius spent his own money marketing the property, which is valued at roughly $200,000.

“I spent a bunch on marketing and time and getting it ready for the MLS, blasted a bunch of social media and shot it live that morning,” he said.

Seven hours later, the real owner called.

“He was pretty livid,” Pretorius said. “He said, ‘This keeps happening.’ I think he said it was the third time it happened to him, and he was pretty insistent on having it turned into the authorities.”

Importance of reporting

Pretorius quickly went into damage control mode, verifying the true identity of the caller and reporting the incident to police and the local MLS.

He learned that the previous two scams had not been formally reported — a common issue, he says, and part of the reason the fraud keeps recurring.

“I think even when I got that phone call seven hours later, you’re embarrassed. You’re going to feel sheepish and like you let your guard down,” he said. “Even a top performer such as myself, you get complacent thinking this can’t happen to you. When it does, you’re too embarrassed to report it.

“You don’t think necessarily (responding authorities) are going to get that far. But you know, they do have resources that we don’t. The police end up taking both the email and the phone number, and they do register them as spam through their local resources.”

Ten attempts on the same lot

After reporting the scam, Pretorius discovered that his incident was far from unique.

“I’ll say, since I’ve done it, there’s now been no less than 10 additional attempts on the same exact property at our local MLS,” he said. “Our MLS will commonly send out warnings and notifications for that specific address now. The police have flagged it — if they ever see a sign, they’ll call and investigate.”

The methods evolve slightly, but the core strategy remains the same; impersonate an out-of-state property owner, push for a quick sale and cash in before suspicions arise.

“They did change email addresses and some of the additional scam attempts on the same property,” Pretorius said. “So the one for me was a Hotmail, but then they ended up using an Outlook [account].”

What could have been done differently

Pretorius admits he could have done more upfront to verify the seller’s identity.

“I’ve had to change my operating procedures,” he said. “I think it’s important that we all look for ways to verify, particularly in this tech-forward industry that we’re in these days.”

His new protocol? Three forms of verification, minimum.

For the scam property, he was “able to get a couple of them, but not a third. And I think I really needed a third one to feel better about it,” Pretorius said. “It’s about not feeling bad about asking for something like, ‘Can you provide me a scanned copy of a passport or of your driver’s license so I can verify you are who you are?’

“It sounds abrasive, and I think we’re afraid to ask the question, but with the number of scams going on, I think that’s important.”

Pretorius hopes his openness will help break the stigma around reporting.

“I survived the scam. It’s embarrassing, sure, but I can be an advocate for leading change against listing fraud and help others feel empowered to report this,” he said. “Because had it been reported — I wasn’t the first. I was the third. Potentially, it could have saved me the thousands of dollars that I spent on marketing.”

The future of fraud

The sophistication of scams is accelerating — and so are the tools needed to fight them.

“I think we’re going to see an increase in scams continue to happen,” Pretorius warned. “We need to draw new red lines in everyone’s process in this industry — using technology as a form of security just as much as the other side is using it as a form of fraud.”

While software companies continue to integrate artificial intelligence (AI)-based authentication systems, Pretorius believes adoption by individual agents needs to accelerate.

“Don’t be afraid to ask for information,” he said. “We’re talking about a transaction that is typically one of the largest transactions that individuals will do in their lifetime — real estate. So, preventing fraud is so important, particularly when your insurance caps out at very minimal amounts compared to what [the amount of money] fraud [loss] can entail.”

Pretorius said going public with his incident and hearing similar stories from peers further reinforced his view on always reporting fraud — and never letting shame or stigmas present a brick wall.

“It’s very common and people often don’t talk about it,” he said. “I started talking to other agents locally, and they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, my cousin sells down in Atlanta, that happened to them. Oh, my son sells down in Florida, that happened to them.’ Same exact thing. They use the same property again and again. They just change it up.

“Our collective information will always be our best weapon.”