I have read some horror stories regarding robberies and deaths at open houses across the country. I remember a lady who work for a builder from Dallas not to long ago. She was robbed and killed.
I have never been scared to do hardly anything until the day a weirdo walked into one of my last opens.
This open was fairly busy do to my excessive canvasing of the area with flyer's. I was desperate to get these people out of a dreaded loan issue so I over did it a bit. The guy comes in with a loan companies booklet. He explains that he is a mortgage representative for so and so company. He proceeds to hand me his brochure and then states that he has since moved to another company but thought it did not matter, so he would give me the old info anyway. He could not remember the info for his new firm. The entire time he is saying, as he moves closer and closer, that it has been a long day and he is hot. I tried to keep a comfortable space between us but he was not getting the picture. I had some snacks and refreshments out. He ate 50 cookies (no exaggeration- I tend to over feed at these things) as if he had never eaten before. He drank 2 bottled waters right in front of me (it was hot but it's not like he was at a marathon). All the time he remained right beside me. He smelled and did not have a professional appearance. I finally keep inching my way to the door and made my way out to the front yard. I continued to conversation in the yard so that the neighbor beside me could see both of us (she had offered to look out for me when I was having an open-sweet lady). He left after I told him he needed to go so I could close up. I called my husband who was 2 streets away at out home. This was not some bad area of town. I was in a $400K house. He came over, with our kids to help me close up just in case the weird guy reappeared.
Later that night (around 9:00) some man started calling my real estate cell. I had offered a small gift (which was a dollar store candle) to anyone who was interested in visiting the home. The man, who sounded like the same guy, called me every curse word in the book. He called 3 times (2 he spoke with my husband) before we told him the police were being called. The main portion of his call was to curse me out b/c he did not remember to get his visiting gift. May have been a weird coincidence but that guy was just not right. I can't even put it into words.
I guess there are weirdo's everywhere. I just have not felt the same about an open. I will do them if needed to passive a client but not alone, not ever again. It just does not seem worth the risk at such a small return rate.
This brought up quite a bit of conversation in our home. Should a female or male agent consider some type of protection? Should we work on a buddy system? My grandmother practically forbid me to do an open again.
Before I left Coldwell Banker we had to copy the ID of any client we were taking in our car. We were to do this in front of our office secretary so they knew another person laid eyes on them. The brokers at CB United wanted us to buddy up when showing (as if that was going to work when dealing with commission). I was always fine since I had my husband. I did not get any type of uneasy feeling until I went the real estate business solo in Vegas. He just did not have the time to get his license when we were out that way for a year and a half so I had no choice.
I just think as agents we need to worry about ourselves a bit more then the sale sometimes. I think we are any easy target for criminals (not to mention dead beat prospects).
Would love to hear your experience or thoughts.