The request Aaron Cole received, via email, to wire $123,000 to close on his new home certainly looked legit. It wasn’t, though, and in the click of a mouse, his money was gone.

It was a scam, and the criminals quickly whisked the money to various accounts in the United States and overseas.

Cole’s story has a happy ending, but many others lose big-time in what is becoming a booming niche: online real estate fraud.

Cole, a vice president of a gear and machine company in Oregon City, Oregon, had sold his old home and was ready to move with his wife and two children into a new place. But that happy occasion turned into a nightmare when he had to tell his wife their closing money had vanished.

“I never felt like that before in my life, and I hope I never feel like that again,” he says.

“The scammer got between my correspondence with the title company and me,” he says. The thief sent Cole false wiring instructions, which, “to my untrained eye, looked to be from the same people I’d been working with all along.”

By the time the legit title company called a week later with the actual wiring instructions, he recalls, “I knew my money was gone and there was very little chance of ever recovering any of it.”

Luckily, his title company, WFG National Title in New York City, made Cole whole, allowing him to close on his home and move in just in time for Christmas. In return, he has been telling his story to media outlets to warn consumers about the dangers of real estate “phishing” scams.

According to Bruce Phillips, senior vice president and chief information security officer at WFG, this kind of electronic wire fraud is all too prevalent. “We see a lot of attempted wire fraud,” he says. “We see one almost every day.”

These con artists scammers are clever, too, honing their techniques constantly. “When we change something, they change something back,” Phillips reports. “It’s almost like an arms race.”

In all, wire fraud has registered a year-over-year increase in losses of about 85-90 percent, he says.

A “spoofed” email is what fooled Cole. That’s when the return email address doesn’t match the real company’s URL. In Cole’s case, the email was from a “mail.com” address, rather than one from WFG Title. It was also a PDF document, which the title company never sends, nor does it send wiring instructions by email.

A 2018 FBI report on internet crime includes real estate as one of the hot areas for fraudsters, and the numbers are eye-opening. Though the FBI makes a substantial amount of recoveries, more than 11,000 victims of real estate/rental fraud lost $150 million in 2018, making real estate the fourth-largest loss category.

At a recent meeting of mortgage professionals, FBI Special Agent Kyle Armstrong updated those stats, reporting that mortgage scammers fleeced people out of $12 billion last year for an average of $162,000 per incident. And it’s pretty easy money with little or no consequences.

“If you rob a convenience store, you get $700 and 25 years in prison,” Armstrong said. But if you con someone in a real estate transaction, “you end up with $162,000 in Nigeria ... and it’s virtually impossible to prosecute them once the money’s been transferred.”

Fraudsters target a wide array of players in the real estate industry. Besides title firms, they hunt law firms, real estate agents, buyers and sellers. Armstrong said phishing scams directed at real estate pros use sophisticated schemes that are difficult to stop. Email scams -- referred to by the FBI as Business Email Compromise (BEC) or Email Account Compromise (EAC) -- are definitely booming in the real estate sector, according to the bureau.

“From 2015 to 2017,” it reports, “there was a rise of over 1,100% in the number of BEC-EAC victims reporting the real estate transaction angle, and an almost 2,200% rise in the reported monetary loss.”

How can you protect yourself from falling prey to these clever criminals? There are a couple of obvious steps. If someone you think you know is asking you to wire money, no matter how little, call them and ask if the request is legit. Also, take a close look at the URL the message comes from.

The FBI also advises you to:

-- Verify all requests for a change in payment type and/or location. A sudden request for a change in payment method -- from check to wire, for example -- should make you suspicious.

-- Be wary of any communication that is exclusively email-based. Establish a secondary means of communication for verification purposes.

-- Be mindful of phone conversations. One way to counteract fraudulent phone activity is to establish code phrases that would only be known to the two legitimate parties.

-- If you discover a fraudulent transfer, time is of the essence. First, contact your financial institution and request a recall of the funds. Second, contact your local FBI office and report the fraudulent transfer. Finally, regardless of dollar loss, file a complaint with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (a.k.a. the IC3 unit) at ic3.gov or, for email victims, at bec.ic3.gov.

Personal stories like Cole’s make for potent educational tools. WFG’s Phillips now uses Cole’s story to start industry presentations on the topic.

“Nobody thinks it’s going to happen to them, right up to the time it happens to them,” Phillips warns.

-- Freelance writer Mark Fogarty contributed to this report.

Here come the holidays. In a few weeks, Halloween will be upon us; four weeks after that, Thanksgiving. And before you know it, Christmas and New Year’s will arrive.

It’s the time of year for good cheer. It’s also the time of year when many sellers take their homes off the market, or wait until January to list them. But the smart money says they’re wrong to do so.

For one thing, there’s usually less competition to attract would-be buyers during the holiday season. Busy with holiday parties, buying gifts and perhaps taking a family vacation, sellers don’t have the time to make their homes ready for sale, so they don’t even bother.

But if they wait, other folks in the same boat will also be listing their houses. And before long, all of you could be vying for the same buyer.

For another thing, people out looking at houses during the holiday season are not tire-kickers. They’re serious. They are just as busy as you are, but they’ve made buying a priority. Some need to find a place right away: Maybe they’ve been transferred into the area, for example. And since they won’t have much inventory to choose from, you might be able to sell quicker -- and at a higher price.

Other potential buyers may be fat with money given to them for Christmas -- not a hundred bucks or so, but serious money. After all, Mom and Dad can give a lucky relative up to $15,000 each, tax-free, in any given year. Tampa, Florida, agent Rae Catanese of RE/MAX Bay to Bay says she sees this kind of thing “all the time” in her market.

The recipients will still have to account for the windfall with their mortgage company. Lenders these days want to know where every dollar comes from. But beyond that, a big-time gift goes a long way toward meeting down-payment requirements and/or covering closing costs.

Another reason the end of the year is a good time to sell is because it’s often a slow period for many real estate professionals. Sellers and buyers alike can expect to command the full time and attention of their agents -- or at least, much more of it than if the agents were running around serving many clients during a busier season.

Unfortunately, it’s also a slow time for the many other professionals who provide the ancillary services you’ll need, should you end up striking a deal with an anxious buyer. And that could be a drawback, especially if your buyer must meet a certain timetable, such as closing by the end of the year.

Appraisers, title companies, home inspectors, surveyors and the like take time off, too. Some may be out of town visiting relatives, and some even close down completely, for a week or more at a time. Ditto for insurance companies, recording offices and even lenders. So scheduling becomes an issue that must -- but can be -- addressed.

But back on the positive side of the ledger, in many markets at this time of year, you don’t have to worry about keeping the grass cut or the shrubs pruned so your house makes a good first impression. You’ll still have to rake the leaves and keep the street, driveway and walkway clear of ice and snow. But probably not as frequently as mowing and yanking weeds out of your flower beds.

Inside, your holiday decorations will make the house festive and welcoming. Yes, you’ll have to keep the place tidy. But nothing is as inviting as holiday decor.

“Decorated homes engage the emotions,” says Debbie Reynolds of Platinum Properties in Clarksville, Tennessee. “Remember: Emotions buy.”

You’ll still have to be flexible and prepared to show your place at a moment’s notice. But you’d have to do that anyway, no matter when you put your home on the market. So why not do it when the place shows itself off? Indeed, the holidays are probably the one time of the year when sellers can get by with minimal staging.

Finally, a few tips on selling during the winter in general, especially in cold-weather markets:

-- Open the curtains and blinds to let the natural light shine in. And turn on all the lights in every room to brighten up the place, especially on cloudy or dismal days.

-- Provide convenient parking, either in your drive or on the street. People won’t want to climb a snowbank or take baby steps to avoid ice patches.

-- Put a festive welcome mat at the front door, where visitors can wipe their feet or perhaps even leave their wet or salty shoes. Have slippers or disposable booties available, and a bench or chair where they can sit to make the exchange.

-- Keep your own cold-weather gear out of sight.

-- Don’t allow bad odors to turn people off. Create pleasant scents by baking cookies and cakes, and roasting turkeys. You’ll be eating them anyway.

Some people buy houses in need of repair, rather than move-in ready places, to save money. Others buy fixer-uppers to renovate and resell for a quick profit -- or keep as their own.

If you’re in the former group, though, you may end up spending more money than you saved. And if you’re in the latter group, you may no longer be able to rely on cheap fixes and market appreciation to make a buck.

First, let’s take a deeper dive into the repair-and-hold sector through the eyes of a recent survey, which asked 1,000 homeowners whether they purchased a turnkey house or a fixer-upper, and why. The poll was conducted by Porch.com, a site that matches homeowners with qualified professionals.

The study found that for the 52 percent of those who managed to stay within their home-repair budgets, the savings (over buying something move-in ready) wasn’t terribly great. And for the 44 percent who finished over budget, their “bargain” houses turned out to be no bargain at all. A fortunate 5 percent came in under budget.

Here are the numbers: The average price of a move-in ready house was $250,495, while the average price of a fixer-upper was $199,819 -- a difference of $50,676.

Saving 50 grand is certainly a powerful incentive, even when you consider all the aggravation involved with living in a house while the kitchen is being remodeled, the bathrooms are being gutted and the flooring is being replaced.

But the average spent by buyers who went over budget on renovations was $75,922, meaning they ended up spending $275,741. That’s $25,000 more than they would have spent had they just bit the bullet in the first place and went with a turnkey property.

Those who stayed within budget did better. They spent only $47,072 on repairs and improvements, so their total expenditure was $246,891. But that’s just a few grand less than if they, too, had taken the move-in ready route.

Admittedly, the Porch survey has some flaws, as the service itself points out. For one thing, it was self-reported, and that kind of data is subject to selective memory and exaggeration. For another, responses had to be grouped into certain buckets. For example, if the house need “very few repairs,” it was considered a move-in ready property. If it needed “some repairs,” it was placed in the fixer-upper category, along with those that needed “virtually everything repaired.”

Despite these shortcoming, the poll presents would-be buyers with a picture of what they might be up against if they opt for a fixer when they fail to budget properly and spend wisely.

On average, people who bought a place needing work spent 38 percent more than they expected, the survey found. The most frequent over-budget jobs were heating and air conditioning, plumbing, basements, bathrooms, new appliances, roofs, kitchens and electrical work.

People buy fixers for all sorts of reasons. Money, of course, is the main factor. But many simply like the house, or the neighborhood, and a healthy minority figured they’d enjoy working on the place. Moreover, even though many didn’t save any money, 60 percent of those who broke their budgets said they’d do it again.

But even though the numerous home improvement shows on television make remodeling seem glamorous, you have to be willing to put up with a lot of inconvenience and surprises should you go this route.

Now, in the space we have left, some words on the fix-and-flip set, who tend to make some rudimentary, relatively inexpensive fixes to the properties they buy at deep discount and then peddle them to both owner-occupants and other investors as fast as they can.

“Flip” became a four-letter word after the 2008 housing flop and resulting recession. And with good reason, says Daren Blomquist of Auction.com, an online marketplace for distressed properties: “Speculative home-flippers added little value to homes, relying on price appreciation to fuel their profits.”

Judging by the late-night TV shills hawking their books and videos on how to make a quick profit by buying low and selling high with a few repairs in between -- a slap of paint here, a nail or two there -- a lot of that is still going on. But lately, flipping has become less, shall we say, shady, and more on the up-and-up.

According to a study from CoreLogic, “flippers are shifting away from price speculation and toward adding value to properties.” And Blomquist agrees. More and more professional flippers, not those lured into the field by TV commercials, are employing a high-quality renovation approach, he says.

These flippers are still buying at a discount. But they’re transforming their properties into move-in ready homes through extensive renovations. And in the process, they’re raising home values and helping stabilize neighborhoods.

No matter what side of the coin flippers are on, they should budget carefully, just like those who buy fixer-uppers for their own use. Otherwise, there may be no profit or savings at all.

Case in point: According to Discover Personal Loans, more than three-quarters of the nearly 1,000 people it surveyed were way off when asked what it would cost to remodel a kitchen. They missed the mark by $9,500.