September has been designated REALTOR® Safety Month by the National Association of REALTORS®, and in conjunction with that observance REALTOR® Magazine created an online poll asking of REALTORS® what personal safety products they used while working in real estate. (Personal safety is not a minor issue – everyday situations can be potentially dangerous as agents are meeting with strangers as the normal course of business and often in vacant homes. Agents have been robbed, assaulted, and murdered by assailants who were posing as customers. How would you feel about going into the basement of an unoccupied home with a complete stranger?)
Admittedly the poll respondents are self-selected with a low response rate and all quite unscientific, but the results are still quite interesting.
A couple of observations -- one certainly hopes that those packing lethal weapons (hand gun or knife) are properly trained in the use of such weapons or they merely serve to provide a false sense of security, or worse yet, can be turned against the unskilled owner. Pepper spray and stun guns can also be turned against the owner, but at least they are not lethal. And about the 40% who claim to carry nothing -- that may not be quite true as something as innocuous as a ball point pen can be used defensively as an effective stabbing mechanism.
As the issue is actually a rather serious one, I will refrain from trying to be "cute" by making some stupid comment about how, if you are a buyer, the next time you are shown a property and afterwards when the agent asks you if you are ready to submit an offer, to think real hard about how you will answer.