Selling homes doesn’t sound like a dangerous job. But plastering your face on billboards across town and meeting regularly with total strangers isn’t the safest strategy, either, and realtors are taking steps to ensure their own personal safety.
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A new report from the National Association of Realtors found that a full 16 percent of realtors carry a firearm for self-defense. That number changes based on gender, as 25 percent of men and only 12 percent of women choose to carry a gun on the job.
They have good reason to be cautious. While a small percentage of realtors reported experiencing a life-threatening situation (3 percent), a number of high-profile murders have forced the realty community to take precautions.
Arkansas real estate agent Beverley Carter was killed in 2014 while showing a home to a fake buyer named Arron Lewis.
When asked why he chose to kill Carter, Lewis answered simply, “She was a rich broker. Because she was just a woman who worked alone — a rich broker.”
In 2011, 27-year-old Ashley Okland was killed while showing a home in Iowa. A few years earlier, in 2006, Sarah Anne Walker was stabbed 27 times inside a model home in Texas.
Actual murderers may be few and far between, but the risk of meeting an unstable person in an isolated environment is ever-present.
Thirty-eight percent of realtors said they experienced a situation that made them fear for their personal safety or the safety of their personal information. Women were more likely to say they felt unsafe (46 percent), and suburban areas were more frequently the site of unsafe situations than rural or urban areas (40 percent).
(Photo: NAR)
While individual realtors understand the necessity of self-defense weapons, the National Association of Realtors isn’t immune to anti-gun bias. In an article entitled 56 Safety Tips for Realtors, the authors make no mention of firearms or any other weapon. Tip #12 recommends a self-defense class, but nowhere does the article recommend carrying a weapon to use in a life-threatening situation.
Firearms aren’t the only weapon realtors carry. The survey also found that 19 percent of realtors carry pepper spray, 7 carry a pocket knife, and 5 carry a Taser. In total, 52 percent of men carry a self-defense weapon and 57 percent of women carry a weapon on the job.
Realtors need to carry. They screw so many people that they need to be looking over their shoulders 24-7. Realtors should be prohibited from carrying a firearm. They think that because they have a gun they won’t get it shoved up thier ass when they pull thier shit. I rate realtors right up there with necrophiliac’s and dog beaters.
Hope that rant was cathartic
Sounds like the LEO’s have their next suspect “Brett Randall” to keep an eye on. Might as well get some good use out of the Patriot Act.
Only 3% of realtors face a life threatening situation? That percentage seems pretty damn high compared to an average profession. Obviously store clerk is bad, but I wouldn’t expect that. Good for them. Dead bad guys tend to not be repeat offenders.
Chuck
An armed society is a polite society.
Every law abiding citizen in the nation should carry a gun no matter their job. It’s their civic and moral responsibility to defend themselves, their families and any other innocent individual they happen upon being accosted!
Most employers these days won’t allow it on the job. Get caught and you’re fired. If you’re self-employed, of course it’s a different story.
At my place of employment during the late 80s / early 90s, an FFL would visit every Friday morning to take orders and deliver orders from the previous Friday. Today he would probably be arrested for trespassing (or whatever charges could be dreamed up). A number of individuals in the “ivory tower” used to pack .380 autos and 9mm in their briefcases, and we pee-ons downstairs brought 10mm, .357s and .45s in pistol rugs and hard plastic cases.
Every one of those scenarios today is a firing offense. And decals on the exterior windows show the image of a handgun with the classic red circle and slash through it. Most companies have the same policies. How far this country has devolved in just a little over 25 years!
I work at Keller Williams. We have range day twice per month as an organized group. Out of 211 agents in the bldg, approx 120 take part every month. Of those 120, approx half are CCW holders. We also bring in instructors to teach those that want to learn.
I bet a whole lot more than 16% carry – they just don\’t want something like that getting out.
If ever there was a profession that puts individuals in more possible threat situations than a realtor ( working alone, meeting unknown people, isolated environment, late hours, the list goes on) they would be hard to find. In an industry dominated by women, the armed realtor makes sense not only to the security of the realtor, but the clients being served. Glad the message is finally getting through to this profession.
People who are wise and realize that a psycho or criminal can appear at any time, carry a firearm. I would have though women realtors would have been at the head of the pack though. Sad that they weren’t.