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Anthony: You cannot give out the lockbox code to a buyer. You can’t share the lockbox code with the buyer. You can’t share the key with the buyer, my friends. Honestly, I hate to even have to come on here and waste time on such a subject when I’m in such an amazing historic place right here at the nation’s capital. I’m here for meetings today at the National Association of Realtors and I’m running with some friends this morning and we were just talking about it and it just happened just yesterday where an agent at another company gave their buyer the lockbox code and the buyer went into one of our listings. This is crazy. You can’t do this and I know it’s happening and I understand why it’s happening.
Anthony Lamacchia here with Crush it in Real Estate, and I want to spend about five minutes talking to you guys about this situation. The why is because of the speed of the market. Okay. It’s because of the urgency that everyone is feeling to see homes right away, which by the way has gotten better since spring and a lot better since last winter, but there’s still a lot of urgency.
We’re still in a seller’s market. Buyers still feel a great need to see a house right away, understandably so, but listen, my friends, you can never ever, ever underestimate the importance and the responsibility that you are taking on as a realtor when you go to show a home. See, realtors do this every day. I did it every day for years and I think what happens is it’s like anything else in life. We take it for granted. Oh, it’s just another day, just another person’s keys to their house. No, no, no. Stop and think, my friends, think this through.
You are being given the keys to someone’s home. You are going in their bedroom, their bathroom, their home office, their living room, their kitchen, all the places that they are. All the places that are near and dear to them, that are private to them. That’s what you’re doing. Right? Don’t underestimate that, because when you do, when you lose sight of the sense of responsibility, problems can happen.
What we need to see, and I talked about this at the beginning of COVID, is we need to see massive amounts of communication and cooperation between agents, buyer’s agents, and listing agents. I said this at the beginning, if we all are working together, there is no reason that you would need to give a buyer a lockbox code. If you are a listing agent and you get a call from a buyer’s agent and they say, “Hi, I’m sorry. I was scheduled to show my buyer the home today at three o’clock and unfortunately, my dad has become ill and I have to go see him. Is there a way that you could show the home to your buyers?” “Oh, there isn’t at three? What about four?”
If you’re the listing agent and you hear that from a buyer’s agent, you should be making every effort to help that person. Okay? Because remember, the shoe could be on the other foot a week later, a month later, two months later. We are in a cooperating business. Listing agents don’t get cocky, don’t get too stringent on times. When you get too stringent on specific times the home can be shown, you’re kind of incentivizing someone to go into that listing when they shouldn’t or give away the keys or something because they can’t acclimate. Realtors can’t be in five places at one time.
Anthony: Running with these folks. Think about that. Don’t forget it. All right, I got to catch up to them. Look, they’re running away. Check this out. Here I come. Guys, you get the point, all right? Let’s be responsible. Let’s work together. No giving out lockbox codes. Have a good day.