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Real Estate Agent Assaulted Showing Home; Police Release Name

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Something that I learned to do when out camping or hiking; keep in contact with others. A real estate agent should maybe get in the habit of calling the office every half hour or so, and let them know where you are, and how long you intend to be there. I would bet that the letting the office know where you are is already SOP, but I don't know about staying in semi-constant contact. It might be wise, so that if an agent misses a call or 2, it could raise a red flag.
 
Seems a background check would eliminate most of this problem.

Actually, a pre-approved mortgage would be almost as good as a full criminal background check. I doubt you could get a mortgage under a
'known alias'. At least from a reputable bank.

Also prevents the realtor from wasting time showing houses the client couldn't dream of affording. :)
 
Another open-house buyer, here. No agents involved.

It was a FSBO & our contract with our agent was:
a. Fruitless, despite giving her plenty of opportunity
b. Did not cover houses she didn't show us

Not only was the owner armed, he had two dogs the size of shetland ponies. Mess with him, he shoot ya & feed ya to his pooches.
 
Gun or not, so many bad things can come of it. I'd most likely be the one to ask him to bring his child,nephew, gf etc etc along for the showing.
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Unfortunetly this is another type of deterence i.e. Mr X won't do anything bad because of presence of witness. This is making a number of assumptions ssuch as, how do you verify that it is a nephew not a 29yo passing as a 12 or 13yo as was in the news recently, the gf could be a male "in on it", at a given point the child has been trained to wander off as a "joke" etc....

As stated prevously detterence is a nice theory but does not always work :(

Deterence by data collection and listening to your instincts both primary tools in avoiding problems but as another poster stated.

Bottom line: Deterrence (and awareness/avoidance) are plan "A" to narrow down the threats and hopefully get them to zero. If/when one is not deterred or avoided...you need a plan "B".
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NukemJim
 
Yours is one profession in which I can't imagine NOT being armed! You're out and about all of the time and you're meeting with strangers (strange people?) at odd hours. I've worked for developers at various times in the past and Mr. PPK or Mr. Jframe always went with me on site and to meetings. :what: I call it "insurance".
 
As a retired real estate agent I find some of these ideas very amusing. Call the office or have the office call the agent every 10 minutes is totally out of the question as the office staff is usually too busy to be able to do that. Most agents are too concerned with making the sale and not concerned enough about their own safety, they take risks that good judgement would tell them not to. The risk is not only in the house but also in driving the client in their own vehicles. Car jackings and law suits after an accident are something that they don't think about until it happens to someone they know. Real estate agents in Ct are "independent contractors" and as such the broker's liability is with the agent's business practices and not personal insurance for vehicles etc.
In talking to some of these young agents I found that they feel that a cell phone is just fine as they can always call 911 and be saved by the police. While the police are on the way the damage is done and the "client" is gone. Some offices have policies that prevent agents from caring weapons because they fear shared liability.
It is a tough business and there are always risks but it is up to the individual to minimumize them. The dollar signs are big and blinding to some.
 
My daughter sells homes for a major builder/developer. Through the past few years, they have had enough spooky things happen that they have an armed guard in the office, and they always show houses with a guy along.
My daughter carrys a Model 60 snubbie, but frankly, if some creep gets the jump on you, the gun won't help much.
 
Realtors

While in the process of house shopping in '05 before I bought this one, I had occasion to be shown a house by a charming young lady who was obviously either new to the business...didn't believe that there really are bad people in the world...or hadn't had the hair stand up on the back of her neck yet.

After the showing, I told this darling "Pollyanna" that she'd made some serious errors during our time together. She met with me alone nearly at sundown...which put the end of the showing well after dark. She let me follow her into the basement and other rooms. She let me get too close to her...and she didn't keep a watchful eye on me. I told her that...while I wasn't a bad guy...the next one might be. I hope she took it to heart.
 
I'd never thought about these problems. Thank you for this thread, Jeff, and all who are contributing to it.
 
Your security is your own responsibility. Too many agents attach a value to the outcome before they even have a deal. We work by appointment only. If someone calls and says "I'm outside of 123 main, can you meet me here in 10 minutes?" Our answer is simple: "No, I'm sorry but we work by appointment only. We also believe in working smarter not harder, so when yo come in, we can see how many other houses in the area meet your needs. I'd be happy to meet you at our office at a time that we can agree on. What works better for you? Tomorrow or the next day? Morning or afternoon? Etc., etc..

We are not a guide service, nor a taxi service. The system we use makes our profession much safer for us, but best of all, it eliminates those who are not serious. No one who is not serious is going to go through an hour consultation and get pre-qualified before looking at houses if they are not serious. Unfortunately, there are easier targets out there.

The first and most important lesson I learned in Real Estate is: There are people you do not want to do business with.
The second was: You don't have to do busines with anyone you don't want to.

Would you call you doctor and say;"Doc, I've got a scratchy throat. Can you meet me at my office in 10 minutes and give me a quick look? No. So why would you do that with a real estate agent. Better yet, why would your agent allow you to do that to them? We are professionals. In the same way a doctor or attorney is.

Too many people (clients and agents alike) think that agents are at the beck & call of the clients. This is only true if you allow it. If you don't control your client's, your clients control you. We control our clients. We have never in 5 years had anyone go through a consultation and not want to do business with us.

As I said, it makes our business easier, safer and our clients appreciate it because our level of professionalism makes them trust us and gives them confidence in our ability to represent their best interests.
 
The second was: You don't have to do busines with anyone you don't want to.
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That one works both ways :p

We had a real estate agent refuse to show us houses because she wasn't sure that we could afford them. Went to another agent, and she directed us to where we could get financing and so we bought a house through her.

The first agency went out of business a couple years later. ;)

What I don't understand is why the first agent would even list certain houses if they don't want to show them to people in that income bracket :confused: What, do they think a millionaire is going to come along and pay cash for a smaller and older home ????? :rolleyes:
 
I hope I'm not resurrecting this thread to mention the perpetrator has been found.

Edit: I did not bother to check a few posts up to see Mr. Burke has already mentioned this. I knew of the arrest but did not know if anyone had posted the information here. :eek:
 
This realtor said that of the ten women realtors in her office, eight of them carried guns. All illegally. They were willing to take their chances with a judge and jury, rather than end up on a stainless steel autopsy table at the L.A. Morgue.
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carpetbagger said:
Seems a background check would eliminate most of this problem.

Actually, a pre-approved mortgage would be almost as good as a full criminal background check. I doubt you could get a mortgage under a
'known alias'. At least from a reputable bank.

Also prevents the realtor from wasting time showing houses the client couldn't dream of affording.
Click to expand...

As a mortgage banker, that was my first thought. It takes me about 20 minutes to do a pre-approval, which includes checking ID (Patriot Act) and pulling credit (need SSN and DOB matching ID). I also have their employment info and home address.

Businesswise it makes sense as I can tell the client and agent exactly how much they can be approved for and safety wise, I've got the client's life by the huevos.
 
LURPER,

I am happy to see that you are a professional and not a "tour guide" as a lot of agents are. Your approach itself weeds out a lot of lookers, talkers and time wasters, keep up the good work.
 
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