Listing Agents, Please Consider Buyer Agent Safety when you are listing a home. Lately, with the heightened awareness of being safe while out showing, I have started leaving feedback about safety concerns. I have not been keenly aware myself about where I put lock boxes or giving Sellers instructions about lights and door locks. But I am starting to!
Some things to consider:
1. Place lock boxes at waist high and make sure that they are attached. Many of us go up to doors with only one hand free to operate the lock box. If they are on the ground, it takes two hands to operate, leaving no hands free to protect one's self if necessary. Also bending over to pick up a lock box is a very vulnerable position to be in.
2. Make sure front door locks work easily! Door locks that have to be jiggled or doors that have to be pulled on in order to unlock take all focus leaving the agent more unaware of things going on behind.
3. Ask Sellers to leave the front porch light on as well as some interior lights for late afternoon or evening showings so that Buyers and Buyer's Agents don't have to enter a dark house or fumble with a flashlight and key and listing sheets and all the other stuff we have to carry.
4. Ask Sellers to trim bushes and trees around the house so that the house is not hidden from street view, if possible.
I would welcome any other suggestions about things Sellers can do to help ensure that their home is not a possible target. A lot goes into getting a home ready to put on the market, a few extra precautions can keep it safe, not just for the Seller, but for the potential Buyer and Buyer's Agent.
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