Real Estate Safety

Those are good things to do, and we should all be in the habit of these prudent practices.    I am sending my good thoughts.    At least she's alive.  

Thank goodness that agent will be ok -- one can't be too safe.

Definitely good ideas. Thorough, thorough pre-qualification of new clients helps.

Good points!  I am glad the agent is ok, too.   I do something similar when I am concerned about a new "customer"; I will have my office staff call me 30 minutes in and if I mention "the blue folder" then they know there is trouble.  Luckily, I haven't been in any dangerous situations; so far, my gut feeling has helped me...  There was a guy who wanted me to give him a "private showing" and he was sending out all kinds of red flags, so I decided against showing him the property.  I found out later, he was a sex offender.  He used to call and leave me voicemails late at night saying how honored he would be if I would be his agent... UGH!!!

Kelly, Good Reminder for the new and not so new to the trades, Don't go it alone.

I hate to hear about those kinds of things.  My wife is an agent and we take many precautions when she is showing a house alone. 

1.  Never at night.

2.  Never by herself if it is a male.

3.  She always leaves her schedule and addresses with me or our office manager.

4.  If she is showing the houses alone, she calls me in between showings.  If I don't hear from her in 30 minutes  I call her, if she doesn't answer I will call the police.

5.  She carries mace. 

I have a family member who had her sister killed while showing a house.  They never found the person who did it. 

Please be careful out there!

That is scary, glad the agent will be ok. We definitely have to think and use all caution when we are going out, even at an open house. Our numbers are on everything. I along with some other local agents had prank calls(terrible/threatening)  in the past that the sheriff had to get involved. They actually found the guy. I'm like you, if I get a call and I get a funny feeling about it...I get someone to go with me. Go with your instinct.

Kelly-Thanks for this post.  I have reblogged it to get as much exposure as possible.  Stuff like this is so important to get around because something like this might not occur to someone when they are out to eat or just having a quick drink like a glass of water or soda.  So glad she is okay.

Kelly, If I have any unusual 'feelings' about a client I'm showing homes to I always have my husband/driver drive me to meet the client at the property (he waits in the car during the showings), or have someone else present in my vehicle waiting if I can't get another agent to come with me.  If showing only one home, I tell my Buyer that there is another agent scheduled to come and look at the house near the same time as our appointed time.  During open houses I have my husband call every 1/2 to 1 hour to see how I'm doing, and of course he knows the address where I am.  I'm fairly sure that I've saved myself on one occasion, whenI met a client for the first time in a vacant house one evening,...he was a big scary-looking guy who actually said he wanted to buy the one house I showed him (I had another female agent with me at the showing-I told him that she was previewing the home for an interested client), and he wanted to meet me later to put in his offer.  Later that evening we met at my office where other agents had stayed late to work-so we were not alone.  We did up the paperwork and  he promised to drop off the deposit the next morning.  Well, I never saw him again, and he never answered my numerous calls.  I really had a strange feeling about him, and I'm so glad I trusted myself. We have implemented a new system in my city where we can choose to have buyers fill out an identification form, and show their drivers licence and fill in the make/model and license plate number of their vehicle.  We don't always use it, but our office staff know to act as if it is normal procedure should we request it with a client we feel uneasy about.  Thanks for the post, and the reminder that you can never be too careful!

Kelly,

This is an all to often situation that happens to REALTORS(r).  We need to constantly be on our guard.  I have setup a safety training course that is part of our new agent orientation.  I will send you a copy of it and please feel free to give it to your broker ore even board and if you need help is setting it up give me a call.

Great reminder - I am glad that the agent is okay.  We have similar office rules which I shared in a prior post.  We use emergency code words, showing call-ins and call-outs, etc.  We also review safety procedures quarterly at sales meetings.  NAR also has some good safety videos.  Sorry for the links - but agent safety is a hot button issue for me. 

Kelly, any chance you could forward the info to me?