A person apparently pretending to be the owner of a high-rise condo in Austin and a 9,000-square-foot mansion in Dallas listed both properties for sale on Zillow even though neither are on the market, according to brokers that previously held the listings.
The Austin condo at the W Residences at 210 Lavaca Street and the mansion at 10455 Strait Lane were both listed for sale last week by Jordan Winters, according to Zillow listings. Winters did not respond to repeated calls — even when contacted through Zillow’s “contact agent” feature. A voice mailbox connected to the number listed by Winters on Zillow was full.
“I cannot believe that Zillow still has not taken down a knowingly fraudulent listing,” said Ryan Streiff, a broker at Dave Perry-Miller Real Estate who previously marketed the Dallas mansion for sale. The Dallas listing has since been removed from Zillow since Streiff’s comments to TRD earlier this week.
Zillow encourages anyone who finds a fraudulent listing on its website to report it, and says its customer support “monitors activity.”
The five-bedroom home in Dallas was listed by Streiff in 2020 for $7.5 million and was taken off the market last year. Public property records show William Templeton owns the Dallas property. A limited liability company registered in Texas is also registered to Templeton at the address.
Winters, who was listed on Zillow as the property owner, listed the home for the same price and was offering a one-hour open house one day last week.
Open houses for homes above $2 million in Dallas are often two to three hours, according to current Zillow listings. A $9 million home at 4700 Dorset Road is currently offering a four-hour open house for two consecutive days.
In Austin, the condo at 210 Lavaca Street sold last December, according to the previous broker on the listing, Eric Copper from Keller Williams. Copper removed the listing in December at a price of $4.95 million, according to previous history on Zillow.
It’s not unheard of for houses to flip quickly, but Copper is skeptical.
“That listing is not the listing I had, it doesn’t even look like #3503,” referring to the apartment number, Copper said. Copper declined to say who bought the property, but public property records filed with Travis County show Stuart Hudson bought the property in December and it hasn’t traded hands since.
The condo is still currently listed for sale on Zillow, with an asking price of $6 million — the listing has been saved at least eight times by Zillow users and viewed more than 400 times.