For those of you haven't heard about the murder of Lindsay Buziak, a real estate agent in Victoria, British Columbia I urge you to read the Times Colonist article online. For those of you have read this article I am sure you feel the same way I do. No one should be scared to do their job, yet this killing has left most of us, especially female agents feeling a bit less secure in our day to day dealings.
We don't want to have to ask every client we deal with to go through a security check before we can go out and look at homes, but we have to do something differently.
Lindsay had a bad feeling about the showing, yet went and did it anyways. She was a young agent, and like most of us newer agents, she probably felt like she HAD to. As a new agent you don't want to miss a possible lead or sale and this is probably why she was called. I feel for her family and her friends in this moment of despair. She was out trying to make a good honest living and she was killed. She called her boyfriend to have him meet her there, but he was too late. There are many things we can do to make our job safer and most people talk about a ‘buddy system' but this isn't always easy when you are all busy agents.
What can we do as real estate agents? I think our associations and governing bodies need to come up with a better way for us to screen potential buyers and enforce all agents to use this method! If you want to look at houses, you have to prove identification. This is not unreasonable, you have to have identification to check out a book at the library and no one seems to get upset at that, so lets figure out a way to make it safe for everyone and to STOP predators!
I look forward to everyone's suggestions on how to make our world a safer one but especially in the field of real estate.
Kari Calder
Saskatoon Real Estate Agent
Century 21 Conexus Realty Ltd.
www.karicalder.com
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