Realtor Safety.........

Since reading Fred Carver's article on the tragic incident in Canada, I have been thinking of how my wife and I can do a better job at protecting ourselves.  The worse thing that we can do is to begin thinking that everyone that calls on a sign to see that house is out to get one of us.  That being said, there are some things that we can do. I have come up with just a couple of ideas, although there probably are many more that I haven't thought of, or that someone trained in personal safety could teach you.   

We can ask the caller if they can come to the office, we may have another house that they might like even better than the one that they are parked in front of, if we knew what they were looking for.  That isn't always practicle, and in our market area, there are some listings that are several miles from our office.  We can always tell someone where we are going and approximately how long we intend to be there.  We can even arrange the phone call check up after a period of time have another agent or the office secretary call with a pre arranged code(the entire office should have that code) if everything is okay and it really is someone looking to purchase Real Estate, you could always say to them: I need to let this buyer know that I will call them right back.  Then tell whoever the code and say something then I will call you back etc.

The most important thing that we can do is to let someone know where we will be at all times, I know that this goes against the grain of most Realtors, it does me, but it is important.  The other aspect is to have someone that is going to check up on you.  I am not saying that the Realtor in Canada didn't do any or all of these things, when something bad happens, it does so very quickly.  Years ago I heard an instructor say that if you have a gun and the person attacking you is withing 20 feet, you're in serious trouble.  That seems hard to believe, but the instructor showed just how quickly an average person can cover those 20 feet, usually they were grabbing at us before we had even reacted to the movement.

I have heard that some Realtors carry their cell phones with 911 pre programmed so that they just have to push the connect button.  Stay alert, and if someone scares or gives you a creepy feeling, do what you need to do.  I would rather look stupid (brought the wrong key, or forgot my Supra lockbox key) than look injured or worse.  I would explain that I needed to run back and get it, sorry for the inconvenience, then find someone to go with me, even if they just pretended to be someone else that wanted to look at the property. 

I am in no way an expert, I just hope that each of us take care.  Contact your local police department or sheriff's office to see if they have some training to help with this.  Most offices would be glad to do something like that.  Please be safe and have a great rest of the week.