Elk Grove was touted in 2006 as the fastest growing city in America. Wednesday, the Elk Grove police arrested a real estate agent, Vivian Hoang, 34, and 14 other individuals after seizing almost 7,000 marijuana plants at 21 homes. Pot growers buy these $500,000 homes tucked away in growing suburban neighborhoods such as Natomas and Elk Grove and turn them into indoor pot farms.
This is the second raid by police; the first was last September in Natomas, which included a sprinkling of homes in Elk Grove. A significant difference between the two seizures is the homes involved in this week's bust mostly had pot growing solely on the second floors and people lived on the first floors. The pot houses in the first raid were vacant and filled with marijuana plants.
Similar to last year's pot bust, the police found one agent tied to the illegal operations. They watched the activity for 10 months before arresting Hoang at her Elk Grove home and hauling out 329 marijuana plants.
Well, I've got a tip for the police. It's simple. Because the drug cartel tend to use the same agent over and over, just check MLS records to get the names of the agents who have sold at least eight to 12 homes over the last year. It may astonish you to know that there are not that many of them. An average agent sells about one home every two or three months. Of the thousands of licensed agents in Sacramento County, the number of agents who sell one home a month is in the low hundreds.
Then the police could narrow their list to the agents who sold in suspected ZIP Codes and check those names against DRE records to see which recently obtained a real estate license. Bingo. They'd have their suspects. From those names, it's a piece of cake to pull up the sales of each agent and check out the homes . . . read more about pot houses.
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©Elizabeth Weintraub
Typical Elk Grove Home
Technorati tag: pot houses
At the time of writing, Elizabeth Weintraub, DRE # 00697006, is a Broker-Associate at Lyon Real Estate in Sacramento, California.
Comments
It is against the law for law enforcement to sift through databases such as Metrolist, or even the public records such as the DRE looking for patterns like this, as it has the possibility of being used to target people who are innocent. It’s called an unreasonable search.
Same with power company records, (as grow operations consume many times what a normal household would use) as well as thermal imaging taken by helicopter of homes that may display excessive heat due to the equipment used to grow plants indoors.
they are all used as supporting evidence after probable cause has been established, but your assertion that the police just drive down to even the Dept. of Real Estate and pull records is against the law, and any persons arrested with that as the initial evidence will have an easy time getting the charges thrown out based on the fact that law enforcement had no probable cause.
Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.
-Benjamin Franklin
It’s not against the law to use public records to identify a trend in criminal activity. It’s stupid to think that cops are going to harass sales agents just because they’re doing well, and I for one am glad that they do this kind of research. Who wants their home value to go to “pot” when criminals decide to use your neighborhood for nefarious activity, much less have your children exposed to this kind of ilk.
Hi
Do you appreciate refferal? Do you always wish that after helping a client buy a home, he or she would refer you to some one else? Yes and Yes right?
Any and all successful Agent wants and works on referal basis. Let just hope that if you ever help one buyer to buy a house with the purpose of using the house as a POT HOUSE either the buyer tell you the secret up frond or not refer you to their friends at all!
Wait, you said you only sell a house every 2 or 3 months, then you probably dont have any refferal at all? just one time catch and that’s it? That’s safe for you! you won’t ever be on the police’s watch list! Arcording to your tip, that list only consist of successful agents who sell more than a house a month!
More tip for you! To make sure the police wont ever bother you, make sure your client sign some sort of agreement for you to check their house any time after closing to prevent them from doing any illegal activity! SAFETY at first, you know? Hehehe!
Tips for police: Don’t go to Losers for advise! Go to those successful agents who sell more than 2 or 3 houses a month for advise, obviously, they have better brain! (hint: better brain makes better advise) understand?
Good Luck to all of you!