Be careful if someone is trying to get you to put a nonrefundable deposit on a property to hold it. I recently was bidding in an auction and another bidder had left bids. He won (I ran him up quite a bit) and it turned out he was a scammer. When you Googled his name, he had advertised properties using pictures which were not current. One guy complained he sent in $1,600 nonrefundable towards the purchase price and went to see it prior to sending the rest of the down payment. Turned out it was an empty lot where the house had burned down about 5 years before and the pics were from before the fire. He was out the $1,600 (and there were several others posting similar situations with this guy). I did manage to get the home under contract for my bid just over the last legitimate bidder instead of the bids I placed against the scammer. This is a home that looks great from the Zillow pics, but needs extensive rehab. BTW - the scammer wasn't a realtor and claimed to be a wholesaler (he's in the Tampa area), although he was selling properties in several states.
