Sell smart and stay safe

I've posted before about [Selling real estate and personal safety] and it's something worth thinking about every once in a while.  Particularly for professionals, but also for anyone thinking about selling their property on their own.  You'll have complete strangers into your home, out of public view. It poses some very real risk because there are dangerous people out there.

Personal safety is enough of an issue for real estate agents that there are guidebooks available from the real estate associations to help us work safely.  Obviously, the usual concern is for female agents, but as you'll see in the news articles linked from in the previous blog entry mentioned above, men are not immune to physical attacks either.

I got thinking about this again as the REALTORS® Assocation of Hamilton-Burlington issued the following warning to its members:

Dear Members,

Please Be Advised that there is Suspicious Buyer saying he sold his home in BC for over one Million Dollars and now he needs to see homes right away in the Hamilton area and will pay cash.

He asking if the Realtor if she will be by herself at the showings and when one of our Realtors said she would be with someone else he didn't respond when the viewings were confirmed.

This Buyer is going by the name Harvey but obviously he could change his name.

Please don't show any homes to strangers you haven't met first , preferably at one of our offices and please have someone else with you for showings if you do not know the individual.

Please work safe. 
 

This person may or may not be a predator, but they're out there.  And they know how to present themselves in attract terms and manipulate potential victims.  Keep your wits about you and stay safe. Hiring a real estate professional to handle buyer inquiries and showings is by far your best bet for personal safety, but if you do intend to sell privately, make sure you give some thought to how you're going about it.