Crime Prevention for Real Estate Agents: An Introduction

This is the first in a series of articles that teaches Realtors how to prevent being a victim of crime. All month long, we'll be publishing content from an educational course on Realtor Safety in partnership with safety app creator Real Safe Agent. Please consider sharing this important information with your colleagues, agents (for brokers), and membership (for MLSs and associations).

Real estate agents face an entirely different set of challenges than the general population when it comes to safety. The general population stays safe by not being alone with strangers in areas hidden from the eyesight and earshot of others. However, this is how a real estate agent makes a living. The general population removes themselves from a situation where they begin to feel uncomfortable or unsafe, but a real estate agent will keep himself/herself in a situation where he/she feels uncomfortable or unsafe because he or she does not want to risk losing the sale.

These are calculated risks that a real estate agent makes in order to make a living, and therein lies the key to staying safe as a real estate agent:

• Evaluating the prospect, property, and circumstances
• Assessing the collective risk
• Reacting appropriately

This course is designed to provide you with the knowledge of how to evaluate the prospect, property, and circumstances so you can assess the collective risk of all three and make better decisions about which actions are appropriate to minimize risk and keep yourself safe, as well as what can be done as a community do to keep each other safe.

Before jumping in, we should take a few minutes to examine some facts about the real estate industry and understand the limitations of personal safety devices, applications, and self-defense techniques. Data regarding the safety of the real estate industry is kept by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, and even then, not all the data on crime against real estate agents even gets reported. 2013 is the last year for which we have data. Keeping those facts in mind, in 2013:

• 32 people were murdered while selling or leasing real estate
• Over 330 were victims of assault, rape, or murder
• There is no accurate data available on how many were victims of robbery, attempted robbery, attempted assault, or attempted rape
• Since 2006, violent crime against people selling and leasing real estate has risen 300 percent

Why is knowing this information important? Simple, knowing the facts helps you sort out those who are minimizing the risk and those who are capitalizing on the risk and why?

Read the second article in this series now: Understanding Crime and Criminals

Read More Articles in this Series

September is Realtor® Safety Month. Throughout the month, RE Technology will be publishing excerpts from an educational course on Realtor Safety in partnership with safety app creator Real Safe Agent. Here's the list of articles that have been published to date:

• Realtor Safety: Understanding Crime and Criminals
• Realtor Safety: Anatomy of a Crime
• Realtor Safety: Reducing the Risk of Being Targeted
• Realtor Safety: Setting Expectations in Your Marketing
• Realtor Safety: Screening Prospects Before a Showing
• Realtor Safety: Evaluating a Property and Neighborhood
• Realtor Safety: Using the Initial Prospect Call to Deter Predators
• Realtor Safety: What Is This Feeling?
• Realtor Safety: Reading the Prospect
• Realtor Safety: How the Real Estate Community Can Protect Itself

Please consider sharing this important information with your colleagues, your agents (brokers), and membership (MLSs and associations)!