Could home transactions become a new money-laundering tool for criminals?

Amanda Marcum, the principal broker-owner of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices of America Foster Realtors, felt like something was off about the deal as soon as her sellers received the offer. “The buyer, which we learned was some sort of online referral lead, showed up with their agent and looked at the house and then made an offer that was too good to be true,” Marcum who is based in Kentucky, said. “They offered full price and they have a much larger escrow deposit than normal.” Marcum, who operates in a small town where “there aren’t many degrees of separation between people,” said buyers typically have an escrow deposit of $500 to $1,000, but that she typically tries to secure a deposit of 1% for her sellers. “This was 5%,” she said. “It was abnormally large, but they were paying all cash.” The next red flag popped up when it took them several days to send over proof of funds. When the proof eventually came, Marcum said it was a screenshot of a digital account. “It was not an offshore account, but it was not something I knew right away like PayPal or Venmo,” she said. Marcum said things got even fishier when the buyer kept delaying sending his earnest money deposit. “We kept get...