A REALTOR® Safety Report, conducted by AGBeat, Moby, and S.A.F.E. (Safety Awareness Firearms Education), analyzed 16 attacks against real estate professionals to determine if any similarities or trends emerged from the attacks.

While the situations of the crimes fluctuated greatly, a few minor commonalities emerged from the attacks, such as:

1. Most of the attacks on real estate professionals occurred in the afternoon, with Thursdays being the most common day.

2. Men are vulnerable too: Nearly one in three victims were men.

3. Most attacks occurred when the victim was alone; the most common way to get agents alone was by perpetrators requesting a showing of a home.

4. The majority of the attacks did not occur inside major metro areas but in the suburbs or a few rural areas, such as in Iowa and Tennessee.

If you have to be a little paranoid, if we have to take the time to research before rushing out and showing properties to people we don’t know, then so be it. Safety is no accident. Preventing even one violent crime is worth taking a few minutes to think about what we’re doing before acting.

As a REALTOR®, the risks you face seem to grow more frequent and more complicated. The strategies to being safer on the job remain simple:

• Know how to react appropriately to a dangerous situation;
• Be aware of your surroundings;
• Empower yourself with careful precautions.

Bottom line: Agents should be vigilant & intentional about personal safety.

Safety will be an issue for real estate agents as long as you’re regularly meeting strangers in empty houses. While there’s no way to guarantee that malicious people will stop targeting agents, you can reduce the chances of having dangerous encounters with an intentional approach to personal safety, by staying alert at all times, using the tools and safety devices available to you, and making self-defense training a priority.

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