As April of this year concluded, Quintana Roo ranked third nationally in real estate fraud through rentals, with cases of monetary losses for victims of up to 33,000 pesos.
According to the digital platform Propiedades, during the first four months of the year, 3,143 alleged scams were reported in this entity, of which 829 took place in the Mexican Caribbean. In Quintana Roo, most scams are related to the rental of homes near the beaches and for a price of up to 20% less than the market rate.
These frauds are mostly committed by criminal groups that present false documentation to offer and advertise houses for rent. More than half of the reported cases were for rentals of properties valued between 12,000 to 20,000 pesos per month.
The scammers use a modus operandi that involves cloning the pages of real estate companies to offer homes in various areas of Tulum, Cancún, and Playa del Carmen, focusing on deceiving people from the center and north of the country. Once they capture the victim’s attention, they request the deposit of two rents in advance, the payment of the contract, as well as the deposit of a security bond.
As reported by REPORTUR.mx, the projections of the real estate sector of Quintana Roo on the impact that short-term rental platforms like Airbnb will have in five years indicate that they will occupy 30% of the state’s homes and raise prices by 40%. Likewise, they revealed that currently, most homeowners are foreigners (QRoo: predicts that Airbnb homes will skyrocket in 5 years).
Source: Reportur