Courtesy of Associated Press

DAYTONA BEACH — Two Florida companies benefitted from a scheme to lure immigrants into high-pressure, high-priced real estate purchases with the promise of jobs, a newspaper investigation found.

Palm Coast Holdings, a land seller, and Centex Homes, the nation’s second largest home builder, gained hundreds of customers through independent brokers who place job advertisements, run real estate ‘‘schools’’ and secure high sales prices from immigrants, according to an eight-month investigation by The News-Journal of Daytona Beach.

The newspaper received accounts from more than two dozen immigrants, of how they answered ads seeking work and instead ended up paying high prices for land and houses without securing permanent jobs.

The immigrants said once they signed for a lot or a house/lot package, representatives lost interest in them and their ‘‘job.’’

Over a 17-month period, hundreds of foreign buyers from other cities also paid as much as four times more for their lots than the average price of comparable lots sold by the companies, the newspaper reported.

‘‘It’s not exactly bait-and-switch but it’s pretty doggone close,’’ said Tom Stephens, president of the Northeast Florida Better Business Bureau in Jacksonville. ‘‘It would certainly be unethical and it certainly sounds shady. Sounds pretty damn illegal to me.’’

William Livingston, president of Palm Coast Holdings, saw no problem with the job advertisements and sales method.

‘‘It’s not uncommon for brokers in business to recruit salesmen. It was a common practice in the heyday of land sales,’’ he told the newspaper. ‘‘It doesn’t sound like a horrible sales practice.’’

Corporate officers for Dallas-based Centex Homes said they ‘‘had no knowledge’’ the company was connected to such business practices.

‘‘This is not how we do business in any way, shape, or form,’’ said Neil Devroy, Centex national vice president of communications and public affairs.

‘‘We have a commitment to do business . . . with our customers in a way that they are satisfied with the home,’’ he said. ‘‘If there is anything in that home-buying process that we feel is not consistent with our (way of) operating, we would take steps to correct it.’’

Still, The News-Journal investigation found evidence of Centex’s and Palm Coast Holdings’ direct involvement with operations targeted at immigrants.

Among the newspaper’s findings:

Centex and Palm Coast Holdings use foreign-speaking out of area brokers and marketing agents to deliver customers to them.

In Brooklyn, Russian-speaking immigrants say they were targeted through job advertisements in Russian-language newspapers. None of the ads examined by the News-Journal mentioned real estate, Palm Coast, or Florida.

When applicants inquired further and attended ‘‘classes,’’ they said they were told their job is to sell property to friends and anyone else who can speak their language. The best way to sell land and houses, they were told, is after buying themselves.

Some lot sales were concluded off-site following the ‘‘classes.’’ Russian-speaking immigrants in Brooklyn often were invited to take trips to Palm Coast of 48 hours or less, during which they met independent brokers who said they represented Centex Homes.

The brokers and their representatives sometimes charged buyers sales and marketing fees as high as $10,000, according to property deeds and accounts by immigrants who purchased land. English-speaking buyers interviewed by The News-Journal were not charged similar fees.

A computer analysis of lot sales in one Palm Coast subdivision over a 17-month period showed that Palm Coast Holdings and an affiliated company, Florida Landmark Communities, charged, on average, nearly triple the average selling price charged by other lot sellers in the same subdivision.

The vast majority of their customers in that subdivision had foreign first and last names, more than 80 percent for Palm Coast Holdings and more than 90 percent for Florida Landmark Communities, the newspaper reported.

Florida Assistant Attorney General Jackie Dowd told the newspaper that its investigation raised concerns.

‘‘It is not legal to discriminate,’’ Dowd said. ‘‘If people who are being charged higher prices are part of an identifiable ethnic group, then there might be a problem."

‘‘If a Florida business advertises in a way that misleads or deceives, then that is against the law.’’