RP "Share This Consumer Alert: Beware of Wire Fraud Schemes When Buying a Home"

June 22, 2017

Buying a home is an exciting time. You’ve saved, found the perfect home and planned the move. Now, the closing day for your home is just around the corner.

The American Land Title Association wants to make sure your home purchase doesn’t get derailed by a dangerous threat that could keep you from getting the keys, painting walls and decorating. Criminals have stolen money meant for the purchase of homes through malicious wire fraud schemes targeting consumers across the country.

Criminals begin the wire fraud process way before the attempted theft occurs. Most often, they begin with a common social engineering technique called phishing. This can take the form of email messages, website forms or phone calls to fraudulently obtain private information. Through seemingly harmless communication, criminals trick users into inputting their information or clicking a link that allows hackers to steal login and password information.

Once hackers gain access to an email account, they will monitor messages to find someone in the process of buying a home. Hacks can come from various parties involved in a transaction, including real estate agents, title companies, attorneys or consumers. Criminals then use the stolen information to email fraudulent wire transfer instructions disguised to appear as if they came from a professional you’re working with to purchase a home. If you receive an email with wiring instructions, don’t respond. Email is not a secure way to send financial information. If you take the bait, your money could be gone in minutes.

“Attorneys and title companies have taken many steps to combat this problem, such as putting consumer warnings on websites and communications, securing email communications and sending notices to consumers and real estate agents informing them of the scams,” said Michelle Korsmo, chief executive officer of the American Land Title Association. “But the criminals are smart and constantly alter their tactics to steal information and money.

“Everyone involved in real estate transactions must also be aware of the potential losses as criminals phish for information and stalk home closings, hoping someone makes a mistake. If someone does mess up, it could cost your savings or retirement.”

Here are five tips to protect against wire fraud:

1. Call, don’t email: Confirm all wiring instructions by phone before transferring funds. Use the phone number from the title company’s website or a business card.
2. Be suspicious: It’s not common for title companies to change wiring instructions and payment info
3. Confirm it all: Ask your bank to confirm not just the account number but also the name on the account before sending a wire.
4. Verify immediately: You should call the title company or real estate agent to validate that the funds were received. Detecting that you sent the money to the wrong account within 24 hours gives you the best chance of recovering your money.
5. Forward, don’t reply: When responding to an email, hit forward instead of reply and then start typing in the person’s email address. Criminals use email address that are very similar to the real one for a company. By typing in email addresses you will make it easier to discover if a fraudster is after you.  

More Homebuyer Tips & Information

The American Land Title Association helps educate homebuyers about title insurance so they can protect your property rights. Check out www.homeclosing101.org to learn more about title insurance and the home closing process.

Contact ALTA at 202-296-3671 or communications@alta.org.

Misconceptions about purchasing a home that is over $1 million

In addition to residential real estate, Safe Harbor Title Company manages multimillion dollar commercial real estate transactions on a daily basis.  Our expertise handling these transactions combined with our regulatory knowledge, makes Safe Harbor Title uniquely qualified to provide settlement and title services for luxury home buyers.

There is a misconception that if you are purchasing a home that is over $1 million you need a lawyer.  There are two reasons why that is not necessarily true: 1. Residential mortgage lending, even jumbo loans, is highly regulated by the federal government.  The loan documents “are what they are,” and cannot be negotiated.  Additionally, the terms of the contract are typically worked out among the Realtors and it is rare for contractual issues to arise.  2. As mentioned, we handled transactions with lots of zero’s on the end every day.  We understand that in these situations we may be receiving money from investment accounts (sometimes multiple), as well as from Seller’s and loan proceeds.

Recently we provided settlement and title services for a home in the West End that sold on May 1st for $1.9 million, one of the highest transactions for Residential Real Estate in the month of May. We suggest that you take a moment to read this article from Richmond Biz Sense about that property, it's a pretty great read!

June 2017 Hard Hat Happy Hour - Richmond Biz Sense

We love compliments!

We got an awesome letter from a client who was very pleased with Candace's work. She's an awesome worker and an integral part of our team. These folks are out of Seattle, WA so you can imagine how thrilled we were when we got this in the mail. 

Looking forward to doing more businesses with Marcus & Millichap in the future! 

Double vision: Chesterfield craft brewery to open second spot in city

Original article appears in WVTR

Posted 6:32 pm, May 4, 2017, by Alix Bryan, Updated at 06:46PM, May 4, 2017

Siblings Brittany and Brad Cooper, co-owners of Steam Bell and Canon & Draw. (Mike Platania of Richmond Biz Sense)

RICHMOND, Va. – The Cooper family has double vision; they founded Steam Bell Beer Works in Chesterfield in 2016 and just announced plans to open craft brewery Canon & Draw later this year in the Fan District.

Brad Cooper, who opened Steam Bell after losing his mining job, said they happened along the location at 1529 Main Street, near the Virginia Commonwealth University Monroe Park Campus, during a search around the area which also included Brookland Park and South Richmond neighborhoods.

“We fell in love with it,” he said of the 5,000-square-feet building that has sat empty for years – downstairs, at least.

Blackwood Development has been slowly using historic tax credits to renovate the former Eclipse Linen Service and Laundromat. There are 16 apartments upstairs, above the commercial space.  Canon & Draw will occupy two retail spaces in the recently renovated building.  Nolen Blackwood said the renovation of the building cost around $3 million, reported RichmondBizSense. There are 16 apartments above the commercial space, ranging from 550 to 950 square feet, according to the BizSense report. 

Canon & Draw will have a partition dividing the tasting room area for private events. (Mike Platania of RichmondBizSense)

Things continue to take shape for a family who name is rooted in the craft itself. Traditionally, a cooper’s work included assembly of casks and barrels. A steam bell is used to cover a barrel and helps ply the wood into shape.

Building upon that branding, canon is French for barrel (though related more to artillery), and a drawknife is used to shape hoops for barrels. And when the soon to be released craft soda line is released, it will be called Trussing Craft Fizz, as a nod to the initiation ceremony that all cooper apprentices go through to become a journeyman.

The sodas will be the only product sold at both places; otherwise, they will be completely separate entities. The farmhouse ale focus of Steam Bell will “hop forward” on this side of the river.

“I’m looking at doing some lagers as well,” Brad said.

“Canon & Draw is an opportunity for us to create a brand that is a perfect fit for the area,” said Brittany Cooper, who moved back to Richmond to help her brother with the marketing side of Steam Bell, and who stayed on as a partner while continuing to work remotely at her IBM gig in New York.

“It’s really a completely a different concept,” she added. “It will be higher end, with leather couches and darker wood – cool, eclectic, old Southern atmosphere.”

Canon & Draw or C/D will be open six days a week and have over 10 taps for smaller batch, experimental varieties. Cooper will use a seven-barrel brewing system, and seven-barrel fermenters.

“We are really excited and already working on pilot batches,” he said.

The opening is set for late summer or fall of this year, though the lease details are still being finalized.

The specific area is surprisingly void of any craft breweries, though plenty of bars and restaurants are nearby. Garden Grove in Carytown is over 1.5 miles away, and in the other direction, Triple Crossing is over a mile away on Foushee.

Steam Bell crew. Left to Right.
Bryan Hicks, Maggie Pearson, Jacob Morgan, Connie Cooper, Brittany Cooper, Jody Brunner, Brad Cooper, Joey Johnson, Jeff Stoker and Tom Cooper

There are close to 30 breweries in the Richmond-metro, with more opening this year, but the Coopers see room for more, and aren’t worried about the brewery boom going flat.

“I believe there is, especially with the rise of the tasting room,” Brittany said. “But with distribution, there is only so much shelf space.”

The local bottles and cans still duke it out for space against the regional and national beers in a distribution scenario, Brad pointed out.

“The distribution market is really competitive,” he said.

Brittany added that the business is “market driven” and that you’ve “got to win a customer.”

Something the Coopers seem to have accomplished in Chesterfield. Right out of the gate, Brad said he hit the goal he had proposed in his original business plan.

“I had this dream of what we would start with and then scale it up over years,” he said.

Canon & Draw is near VCU, in the 1500 block of W. Main Street.

“It’s very humbling to get that level of support from people,” his sister added.

“We were getting a lot of support, so we put our heads down — we knew what we wanted to do the next few years — and went aggressively for it,” Brittany said. “In the first six months we released 40 different beers — we never dreamed we would do that.”

In late January 2018, the Coopers will take over space next door and use the extra 3,000-square-feet as a bottling line for beer and Trussing Craft Fizz. Look for flagship flavors like mint/tea and ginger/lime, along with seasonal varieties like apple/sage and blueberry/basil.

Meanwhile, the one-year party to celebrate the success found on Oak Lake Boulevard is June 3. The anniversary beer, a Brett Rye Saison, is currently fermenting in white wine barrels and awaiting it commemorative 500ML bottles – their first bottle release.

“I still have to order the bottles,” Brad said, as he laughed.

_________________________________________________________________

Canon and Draw
1529 W. Main Street, Richmond
Facebook

Steam Bell Beer Works
1717 Oak Lake Blvd, Midlothian
Facebook

Map of Richmond-metro breweries

SCAM ALERT!

If you've been following our blog recently, you've probably noticed that we've talked a little bit about security and privacy. We'd like to share a very real story that happens more often than you'd expect and explains why we're in business.

A buyer finds a property, they fall in love with it and they put in an offer. Simple right? Before the transaction can be completed, usually a title company like ours, comes in and verifies that everything is in order. We make sure that the title is clean and that there aren't any pending liens on the property, but what you wouldn't think to expect is that the seller isn't even the real owner! 

Yes, this happens occasionally and it is truly scary. Maybe a distant family member or even a complete stranger discovers a property that has been unnattended for many years and decides to put it on the market and tries to sell it. Something that is not theirs to begin with! What is somewhat amazing about this is how far some buyers get into the transaction with someone who is not authorized to sell the property. How can you verify who the owner is unless you hire a Title Company? A Real Estate Agent can lookout for signs of fraud but for most properties, there is a public record of it that anyone could easily lookup and learn everything there is to know about it, and therefore appearing to be the owner. 

Having the right title company is important too because you just don't really know what to expect. We've dealt with so many deals across the board both commercial and residential, that at this point, we've seen it all! If something seems amiss with your 

Active-adult living booming in region

Active-adult living booming in region

TRENDS AREA IS HOT SPOT FOR THOSE 55 AND UP

Original article appears in Fredericksburg.com

But the couple, who have lived in Spotsylvania’s Virginia Heritage community ever since, were impressed with the amenities and the clubhouse.

She said there are always activities, such as her Thursday dominoes-and-lunch group.

“I’m never bored,” she said.

The Clemonses are both retired from the federal government and moved here from Maryland. She is from Orange County, but wanted to be in a more populated part of the Fredericksburg region.

They sold their first home in Virginia Heritage a few years ago and purchased a house with a smaller footprint in the same development.

“It became too much and they were building smaller in a new section,” Pat Clemons said.

They aren’t the only ones in the region looking for a more manageable way of life.

The Census Bureau estimates that by 2050, the country’s 65-and-older population will double. As baby boomers age, that group will number 83.7 million.

According to one local developer, those baby boomers are looking to downsize.

The demand for communities catering to the 55-and-older demographic exploded in the region about a decade ago, spawning places such as Legacy Woods and Virginia Heritage at Lee’s Parke in Spotsylvania, The Evergreens at Smith Run in Fredericksburg, and Falls Run in Stafford County.

Demand for those types of homes dropped along with the rest of the housing market after the Great Recession, but is now showing signs of revival.

Cornerstone Homes, the developer of Regency Park Villas in Spotsylvania, started building in the Fredericksburg area again as demand for its core business—active-adult communities—picked up.

The company sat on 32 acres near the intersection of State Route 3 and Gordon Road for eight years, waiting for the market to improve. Cornerstone recently started work on The Villas at Barley Woods. The first homes are expected to be completed by the end of the year.

Cornerstone owner Roger Glover said demand never died off for senior-living communities, but a poor real estate market kept people from selling their homes.

“Now those homes are selling and they need somewhere to move,” he said. “We’re seeing pent-up demand that has surged in the last couple of years.”

Cornerstone already rezoned the property when the recession hit. Glover said the recession changed his approach to building, and he chose to focus solely on active-adult communities ever since.

Cornerstone is in the final stages of floor plan designs for the communities and will start constituting the model homes and clubhouse this June.

The Villas at Barley Woods will be a small, 55-plus community of about 120 homes.

It will also have features that Glover said seniors are increasingly seeking: walking trails, an executive suite for the semi-retired, a pool, a grandchild play area and a dog run.

It’s not the only outdoor-friendly community Cornerstone is working on.

Hanover County recently approved Cornerstone Homes’ proposal for Chickahominy Falls, a 400-home development anchored by a community farm.

Glover said Fredericksburg ticks all the boxes for a successful senior-focused development. It is on the East Coast, near cities like Richmond and Washington D.C., but far enough removed to offer a slower pace of life. With the region’s growing population, he said many older people are moving here to be close to children who live in the area.

Cathie and David Taylor moved into another Cornerstone development, the Villas at Magnolia Lakes in Richmond, last June.

“From a real estate perspective, I decided to focus when I saw the trend coming,” said Dort, who fits the demographic. “I’m one of them.”

At age 57, he said he’s among the younger residents of the development but needed to downsize from their longtime three-story home on more than an acre.David Taylor is the co-owner of Libbie Market, a full-service grocery story in the Westhampton area of Richmond, and due to the demands of his job needed less home maintenance.

He said with his own health concerns, aged parents and work, it made sense to downsize.

Taylor recommended other people making a similar move take their time and make sure the lifestyle fits their expectations.

Linda Dort, a senior real estate specialist with Century 21 New Millennium, works exclusively with homes in senior communities and communities that are appealing to retired people.

She releases an annual “Guide to Main Level Living” that lists 23 local communities that offer maintenance-free communities with social opportunities. Some of these communities are partially age restricted, and some now allow younger buyers.

Dort also lives in Virginia Heritage. She moved there in 2007.

Active-adult communities are creating new opportunities for local business people.

Thomas Pentland, owner of personal driving service At Your Service, said the aging population created a need for his business.

He focuses on elderly clients who don’t drive, but need to run errands. He moved here from Maine to be closer to family and was struck by the number of senior living developments.

“I went to a lot of those communities and talked about their residents’ transportation needs,” he said. “It’s just because of age. Baby boomers like me are the larger portion of the population, and they are going into retirement.”

Lindley Estes: 540.735-1976

lestes@freelancestar.com

Cornerstone Homes

The Chestefield Chamber of Commerce did an awesome live video about a project being done with Cornerstone Homes. Guess who their preferred settlement services provider is? Yep, you guessed right, only if you guessed Safe Harbor Title of course!

Check out the video below to learn more about this awesome project!

R*Home - Finders Keepers

Original article appears in R*Home - Richmond Magazine

Jodie Strum collects Midcentury treasures to fill her Roslyn Hills home | Photos by Ansel Olson

When Strum moved in, the home was almost entirely brown. She transformed it by painting the walls white with contrasting black beams and installing statement wallpaper. Strum has furnished the home with a mix of Midcentury and contemporary furniture.


When Jodie Strum bought a Midcentury home in Henrico’s Roslyn Hills neighborhood, she scoured the Internet — and area antique stores — for hard-to-find furnishings and home décor items that would help transform the space.

The only thing Strum had no problem finding was the house itself. Her brother was the listing agent, and when he showed her the 2,300-square foot California ranch, built in 1959, she thought she’d walked onto the set of “The Brady Bunch.” Everything — from the walls to the radiators to the living room fireplace — was painted one of three shades of brown. “I didn’t know what I’d do with [the house],” says Strum, a commercial real estate broker, “but I did know I liked the flow.” She purchased it in May 2015.

Strum, who grew up as a member of a large Italian family in Bon Air, had good reason to be impressed by the open floor plan. “When I was young, we ate at my grandmother’s house every Sunday night, all of us wedged in the tiniest kitchen you ever saw,” she recalls. Strum and her siblings have continued the tradition. “We’re big eaters and big entertainers,” she says.

“I wanted to stay true to the Midcentury feel without getting kitschy.” —Jodie Strum

Strum hired Kauffman Construction to bring the house into the 21st century and took to the Internet to learn everything she could about Midcentury home design. Her plan was to keep the best parts of the house intact, while also making the home extremely livable. “I wanted to stay true to … the Midcentury feel without getting kitschy,” Strum says.

Jodie Strum stands in her dining area, which features wallpaper by Matthew Williamson for Osborne & Little. The 1970s table and brass chairs are by Mastercraft, and the light fixture is by Jonathan Adler.

The sunporch features pieces from Strum’s large collection of coveted Russell Woodard furniture, a lucky Craigslist find.

In the kitchen, she opted to save the cabinets but reconfigured them, turning an island into a peninsula and moving the location of the refrigerator. The cabinets got a coat of high-gloss white paint and new hardware, but it was the white glass countertops Strum saw on Houzz and tracked down through a New Jersey-based distributor that really transformed the space.

If she was going to make all those large family gatherings happen, Strum knew she’d need more than just a pretty kitchen. To increase her seating, she added a breakfast bar, which she topped with a heavily epoxied wood countertop, fabricated by Wellborn + Wright. And in the dining room, Strum committed herself to finding a Midcentury table that could extend when the whole family came for dinner. She located a burl wood table with brass inlay, manufactured by Mastercraft in the 1960s, through an antique dealer in Chicago and had it shipped to Richmond.

For finding Midcentury pieces online, Strum relies on Etsy, Chairish, 1stdibs and Craigslist. When a pair of 1960s-era Russell Woodard gliders went up for sale on Craigslist, Strum dropped everything and drove her brother’s truck to Washington, D.C., to pick them up. Her determination earned her the admiration of the couple selling them, and she came home with not two but 17 pieces of the highly coveted patio furniture.

The sunken family room opens to the sunroom and features a cushy velvet couch from Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams paired with an Adrian Pearsall chair and a custom table from Epoch Furnishings.

Selecting new lighting that appropriately evoked the era of the house proved to be one of Strum’s toughest challenges. She went with Jonathan Adler chandeliers in the dining room and the den. In the living room, as well as a guest room, she chose Aerin Lauder pendants, which she ordered from Visual Comfort. And in the kitchen, she commissioned two custom light fixtures — made with milk glass and hemp — from Ro Sham Beaux in Charleston, South Carolina.

The key for Strum has been mixing the old with the new. “I find myself gravitating towards the stuff from the ’50s and ’60s because of the quality,” she says, “but I’ve had to force myself to buy some new things, too.” In her den, a reupholstered Eames chair scored at Born Again Furnishings sits beside a Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams sofa and a coffee table that was custom made by Epoch Furnishings from locally sourced wood.

“I find myself gravitating towards the stuff from the ’50s and ’60s because of the quality.” —Jodie Strum

That desire to blend the old with the new extends to other design decisions. “I read an article that said the worst thing you can do to a Midcentury home is paint the brick,” Strum says. “I would watch TV and stare at the brick [fireplace in my den] and tell myself, ‘Jodie, the worst thing you can do is paint the brick.’ When I finally had it painted, I came home and said, ‘Oh, it was supposed to be painted.’ ”

Strum credits the house with helping her find her personal style. “I designed this house myself for a reason,” she says.

2017 Market Review with GRACRE

Why do so many agents and customers choose Safe Harbor Title to handle their Commercial and Residential Real Estate Transactions? Yes, a lot of you may know that customer service is a top priority for us however, our knowledge of the local market is what really keeps us on top. 

We had the opportunity to attend a fantastic presentation put together by GRACRE at the Westin in Richmond. What was so interesting about this specific presentation is that it didn't just focus on Commercial or Residential but instead how these two Markets affect each other and the overall impact for potential investors and buyers. For example, we're seeing a growing trend in Richmond of a mixture of both - we see shopping centers that have residential housing built into them. One of the first mixed used spaces is West Broad Village in Short Pump. You can find grocery stores, restaurants, a hotel, apartments and townhouses all in the same complex. That same concept is starting to expand to other areas of Richmond and is very much a trend. 

Another interesting point of the presentation is the number of food chains that have started to appear in Richmond, we are seeing more and more national grocery stores opening their doors in our market, this points to a healthy growth in Residential Real Estate. This growth is not reflected with national retail stores but they hope for this to change soon. 

The overall take is that a growing number of people are interested in buying in areas that have accessible amenities and commodities without the need of driving. Instead, people are yearning to have more of a "city living". 

We like to know what is happening in city because it allows us to provide insight to the trends and smart investment choices with the agents and customers that we work with. If you ever have any questions about the area that you're looking to buy or whether or not you think your investment will hold up, don't hesitate to give us a call!