According to CrowdStrike’s 2025 Global Threat Report, Vishing attacks (voice-based phishing conducted via phone, VoIP, or voice messages) jumped 442% between the first half of 2024 and the second half of 2024.
According to Cisco Talos data, by the first quarter of 2025, voice phishing became the most common type of phishing, accounting for more than 60% of all phishing-related incident response operations.
Real estate experts say this industry is a prime target. Timing, money, and trust are all in place.
“Wire fraud is no longer an email problem,” Chris Murphy, founder of Waterfront Homes LLC, a Washington-based company specializing in coastal and vacation home transactions, told Inman. “This is a matter of trust, and real estate is based on trust.”
Familiar voice, fraudulent telegram
The mechanism is simple. Scammers collect audio recordings of loan officers, agents, or title representatives from publicly available materials such as YouTube videos, podcasts, and recorded webinars.
Voice cloning software allows you to generate usable synthetic voices from just a few minutes of audio. The scammer then identifies the buyer or borrower in the middle of a transaction and calls them at a high-stakes moment, such as the day before closing, during a rate lock conversation, or as wire instructions are being completed.
The person on the other end of the phone appears to be someone the buyer has been working with for months. Message: Wire instructions have changed and must be acted upon immediately.
The combination of urgency, authority, and familiar voice makes the attack difficult to catch.
“All a criminal needs to do is choose the right time and participate in the process,” Murphy told Inman. “The buyer will receive a voice call from someone involved in the original transaction, followed by an email or text message with new wiring details.”
Cody Scheiteboer, president and CEO of Best Interest Financial, said the threat materialized for lenders after reports of borrowers receiving phone calls impersonating loan officers. He noted that scammers have learned to time their attacks to coincide with the moments when borrowers are at their most anxious.
“The key to remember here is timing,” Scheidboer said. “Scammers know that borrowers are anxious about closing their loans, want to make it happen, and are used to implicitly following the loan officer’s instructions. The duplicated audio makes that process highly efficient because it is sent at the right time and is virtually impossible to detect.”
Your personal brand is also your responsibility.
Classic wire fraud attempts arrive in emails with recognizable content, such as a slightly misspelled domain, awkward phrasing, or a tense atmosphere. The recipient has learned to spot them. AI voice cloning completely removes these signals.
“Voice cloning removes the ultimate ‘good gut feeling’ instinct that buyers rely on, which is why this type of fraud is currently beyond the reach of available tools,” said Michael Benoit, founder of ContractorBond.org and president of Pacific United Insurance Services.
The professionals most at risk may be the most successful. Agents and loan officers who have built strong personal brands through video content, podcast appearances, and webinars have generated the largest library of publicly available audio, and therefore the most material for cloning.
“Top agents who have created the strongest personal brands are the ones most at risk of identity theft, because their clients know and believe that voice,” Benoit said.
Cheryl Benjamin, a real estate broker and founder of Loving Phoenix Realty in Glendale, Ariz., said the scam exploited a feature of the closing process rather than a flaw on the part of the buyer. This process is expected to move quickly with continuous updates from multiple stakeholders.
“You’re dealing with paperwork, deadlines, and a lot of money. When you’re in the thick of it, you tend to trust people who sound like they know what’s going on,” Benjamin says. “That’s exactly the scammer’s trap.”
Complexity is vulnerability
Ownli co-founder Blake O’Shaughnessy said one thing that isn’t talked about enough is the complexity and prevalence of real estate fraud.
“The more parties there are, the more emails there are, the more consumers are expected to trust someone without really knowing what they’re doing, the easier it is for bad actors to get in,” O’Shaughnessy told Inman.
He pointed out that most buyers aren’t making mistakes out of carelessness. They’re making it because they’re overwhelmed.
“Buying a home is already hard work. By the time the telegram instructions arrive, people are just about to get to the finish line,” O’Shaughnessy said. “It’s not really their concern to question every detail.”
He said the industry’s answer is essentially to tell people to stay vigilant and check everything. That made sense 10 years ago, but now that AI can replicate voices, fully replicate email threads, and do it at scale, it’s a much harder sell.
“The weakness was never that the buyer didn’t do their due diligence,” O’Shaughnessy said. “That means we’ve built a process with so many seams that something always slips through the cracks. At some point, you have to ask yourself if simplifying the whole thing is going to be more effective than your previous training program.”
A low-tech fix for a high-tech threat
Simplifying the closing process could help, as O’Shaughnessy suggests. But for now, real estate experts say many of the existing defenses are low-tech and everyone needs to set up before the deadline.
Best Interest Financial is currently confirming wire instructions through a second independent channel. Directly contact the registered borrower’s verified number without waiting for a callback or reply text.
The company will also limit what is shared on calls to information covered by a pre-established communication plan.
“But frankly, most financial institutions’ responses and actions have not been quick enough to meet this challenge,” Scheidboer said. “The reality now is that whatever public audio you create is available to someone who is cloning it. This is not paranoid because it is a fact.”
Scheidboer said the “only reliable long-term defense” is a culture that views voice alone as insufficient means of verifying identity when transferring funds.
Both Benoit and Murphy recommended establishing a codeword protocol before the closing begins. The buyer, agent, and closing team agree to a confirmation phrase at the beginning of the relationship. No phrases, no wire movements.
“Agents who already have a double authentication process on both their phone and known email will not lose customers to this scam,” Benoit said.
Benjamin said agents can do a lot to protect their clients and that should start at the beginning of the process.
“Customers need to know that they should always check twice before sending money,” she says. “It’s a good idea to send a concise summary of who will handle your telephonic instructions and what to do if you get a strange call. Most clients are afraid to ask questions, so bring it up yourself first.”
Mr Benjamin said red flags include someone trying to rush you, asking you to change your bank account details, calling you from a number you’ve never seen or telling you it’ll be too late if you don’t change it now.
“And even if that voice sounds like someone you know, it doesn’t mean it’s really that person, because nowadays anyone can copy a voice,” she said. “Don’t send money based on one phone call or one email. Check twice quickly and never change payment instructions until you confirm it directly with someone you know.”
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