Real Estate Agent Personal Safety - Part I

Posted on February 19, 2009
Filed Under Realtor Safety Awareness, Realtor Safety Tips

Last year I was interviewed for the Texas Association of Realtors magazine; however, I never did receive a copy of the article which was about realtor safety. As I was searching through Google today, I came across the article that was done through that interview. Turns out to be a pretty good article on Real Estate Agent Safety. If you are an agent, take a few moments to read the following article. I put it in (3) parts as it was very long.

Courtesy of Texas Association of Realtors

Protect Yourself - Isn’t It Time To Get Serious About Your Safety?

by Bridget McCrea

Most of Joan Malone’s clients were either past customers or referrals. That was, until the REALTOR® with RE/MAX DFW Associates in Coppell just happened to be working in the office one day in 1997 when a man walked in wanting to see a few of the homes on the market at the time. She took the seemingly innocuous customer out to do just that, but it didn’t take long for the hackles on the back of Malone’s neck to rise. For starters, she was suspicious of the “friend” who was tagging along, claiming to be an attorney and boasting about the cash funds that would soon be freed up to purchase a home. “I had a strange feeling about the situation,” says Malone, a REALTOR® since 1990. “I even wrote the word flake on the graphic of the home that he liked the best that day.”

Three months later, the potential buyer resurfaced … this time alone. The next day Malone took him out to look at four homes, including one that he’d seen back in January. “I opened the front door and then stayed in a spot where I could watch what he was doing and what was going on,” says Malone. “The next thing I knew, he knocked me off of my feet, broke my back, stabbed me, and tried to strangle me to death.”

Malone passed out, leaving her attacker to assume he had finished the job. Upon waking, Malone painfully crawled to the kitchen phone, dialed 911, and was rushed to the hospital. She spent five days in intensive care and was out of work for three months.

Unwilling to let the attack keep her from the work that she loved, Malone returned to real estate with a renewed spirit and a newfound suspicion of potential threats.

“I learned that I should always trust my intuition,” she says. “Early on, something just wasn’t right with this guy, and I sensed it. But we don’t relate to everyone in the same way all of the time, so it was difficult to just blow someone off who might turn into a sale.”

Should the scenario ever repeat itself, Malone says she’d never take the person out again by herself. Instead, she would bring a friend or colleague along for safety. “One thing’s for sure,” she says, “if a prospect does have a motive other than buying or selling a home—and you do bring someone with you on the appointment—you’ll never see that customer again.”

What to do with all that advice?

The amount of safety information provided to REALTORS® can be overwhelming. The fact that some of it is conflicting makes it even more difficult to figure out what will work best.

Should you really ask for ID from open-house visitors? Is it better to keep your pepper spray on a key chain or hide it in your purse? Should you fight back or allow the criminal to have his way in hopes that he lets you go safely?

Cheryl Watterson of Personal Security Solutions says agents need to realize that every situation is different, and that the safety measures that work in one scenario may not necessarily function as planned in another. To avoid getting too caught up in minute details, Watterson says agents should take a step back and consider a few commonsense guidelines, such as doing a gut check before going into a situation alone, taking precautions before working with a client (getting an ID and prequalification paperwork, for example), and avoiding situations that look and feel dangerous.

Robert Siciliano of RealtySecurity.com says sifting through conflicting safety advice is a lot like the sales process itself. You need to listen to all of the experts, digest the information, and take away and implement those strategies that best fit your situation.

“Some of my tips just may not be feasible and may not work for someone’s personality style,” he says. “But fundamentals like understanding body language and knowing what’s going on 50 to 100 feet around you at all times work for everyone.”

And, as both Joan Malone and Jeannette Armstrong learned, if something feels wrong, it probably is. “Remember,” warns Siciliano. “Your intuition doesn’t lie.”

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