For years now, true crime podcasts and TV shows have captivated audiences. Now, the craze is coming to real estate.
That’s thanks to industry veterans Troy Palmquist and Summer Goralik, who announced this month that they’re debuting a new podcast called True Crimes of Real Estate. In a statement, the duo described the project as an “investigative-style podcast” that will focus on “real enforcement cases, regulatory failures, and compliance breakdowns that have had lasting consequences for brokers, agents, and consumers.”
In other words, the podcast is unique both for focusing on real estate and for zeroing in on compliance issues that listeners can learn from — rather than just on salacious crime tales.
“Building a successful brokerage isn’t just about recruiting agents or closing transactions,” Palmquist said in the statement. “It’s about creating systems, culture, and leadership that stand up to scrutiny. Compliance is not separate from success. It’s one of the clearest measures of it.”
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The statement adds that the target audience includes “brokers, team leaders, agents, compliance officers, and real estate executives who want to better understand risk, responsibility, and the real-world consequences of operational decisions.”
Industry members will likely be familiar with both Goralik and Palmquist, as each is a regular contributing writer to Inman. Palmquist has also held leadership positions at eXp Realty, founded DOORA Properties, and is the founder and principal advisor at HomeCode Advisors.
Goralik is a real estate compliance expert and consultant. She previously worked for the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, investigating real estate crime.
The duo’s podcast arrives at an opportune moment. In recent years, podcasts such as Serial and My Favorite Murder have pulled in huge audiences. Meanwhile, some of the most popular content on streaming platforms such as Netflix, Hulu and HBO Max has been true crime series.
At the same time, real estate has become a growing target for scammers, and a wave of change has made compliance more complex than ever before.
In an email, Palmquist described the first episode of the podcast as diving into the case of a “California property management company whose routine audit turned into $70,000 in trust account discrepancies and shortfalls.”
“This wasn’t a clerical slip. It was a breakdown of basic trust account handling and reconciliation requirements,” he added.
You can watch the trailer for the first episode of True Crimes of Real Estate here:
