A lot of associations around the country use electronic lock boxes. Some of the national brand names are Supra or Sentry Lock. They are keyless entry systems which add a measure of security, and control access to Realtors and Appraisers only. Although in some associations, certain types of licensed home inspectors are also permitted access via electronic lock boxes.
I am not writing about the merits of these boxes, because there are many. Nor am I writing to discourage anyone from their use. However, wisdom has taught me over the years about certain types of home to put electronic lockboxes on and which ones not to.
There was a time in my early career as an agent that I was taking on a lot of short sales, and better than 50% of the listings I had were of this kind. The mainstream lock box in my Realtor association is Supra. Trying to keep things simple, as electronic lockboxes do offer, I used them on all my listings.
Do you know what I learned from this? Short sales sometimes become foreclosures overnight. Sellers were not always forthcoming with information on their exit plan. Sometimes I would have them living in the home, only to come by a week later and see they had vacated. On some occasions, the locks had changed, and there went my Supra!
A Supra lockbox costs around $100 to replace. A combination lock box on average is around $25. Sometimes I was able to recover the Supra, and on other occasions, I was not able to. Replacing these can be expensive.
So I have learned to utilize a standard combination lock box on homes listed as short sales for this reason. Some may argue that it is not as secure, combinations numbers getting out, etc. I have not experienced that, although I am not ruling out that this could happen. However, combination boxes can always be changed if you suspect the numbers have been shared with unlicensed people. On could also argue that they were used for many years successfully before the advent of the electronic lock box as well. I suppose it is up to the agent to determine the risk, versus the reward and make their own determination on this.
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