371: Property Safety: When Your Listing Gets Robbed

It's Realtor Safety Month, and this year we're taking a different angle: property safety.

We've covered personal safety plenty of times before (episodes 317, 216, 161, 112, and 6 & 7 with Carl Carter), but this time Alissa is sharing a story straight from the trenches: the time one of her vacant listings got robbed, mid-listing, appliances and all.

Repeat clients moved out of state and handed off a vacant house with an alarm code buried in a five-month-old text message. The camera system looked impressive, eight angles of surveillance, but it hadn't actually recorded anything in two and a half years. Somewhere between painters, cleaners, and showings, the alarm never got set again, and it was never on Alissa's radar to ask.

Then came the Saturday phone call every agent dreads: a showing agent reporting a kicked-in back door, a stolen oven, a missing washer and dryer, and a fridge the thieves gave up on halfway out the front door. Police, fingerprints, dead-end cameras, and a seller relationship that went from grateful to accusatory in the span of a few days.

This one is a real, honest look at what happens when property safety falls through the cracks, what Alissa changed in her process because of it, and why y'all need a plan for your vacant listings before something goes wrong, not after.

Here's what we cover in this episode:

• Why Realtor Safety Month usually focuses on personal safety, and why property safety deserves its own spotlight

• What actually got stolen (and what the thieves gave up on)

• How Alissa handled calling police, meeting them at the property, and coordinating repairs for out-of-state sellers

• How her broker helped negotiate a fair resolution tied to closing

• Why you are not your seller's property manager, and how to set that expectation early

• The new questions Alissa now asks every seller about alarms, cameras, and monitoring

• Why virtually staging vacant listings can be a safety move, not just a marketing one

• A past story about a garage door left open, and why "who showed it last" matters more than you think

Key Quotes & Takeaways:

• "You're not a property manager. When they hired you to sell the home, they didn't hire you to be the lawn company or the security company." Katy

• "I trust no one and nothing." Katy

• "It's just proof that even when you have good systems, things can go wrong. It's really about handling it professionally and learning from it." Alissa

• "I virtually stage all my vacant properties for safety. I don't want them to appear vacant." Alissa

• "It's Realtor Safety Month. Be careful. Take your safety and the property safety seriously." Alissa

 

Products, People & Previous Episodes Mentioned:

Episode 317: Realtor Safety Month: Scams, Showings, and Survival (hustlehumblypodcast.com/317)

Episode 216: Important Safety Stories & Tips for Realtors (hustlehumblypodcast.com/216)

Episode 161: Realtor Safety Tips from a LEO (hustlehumblypodcast.com/161)

Episode 112: Safety First (hustlehumblypodcast.com/112)

Episodes 6 & 7: Realtor Safety with Carl Carter (Beverly Carter Foundation)

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Straight A's by Connor Price

The Good Life by Summer Kennedy

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