Securing Your Home When Selling
Your safety is the number one priority when putting a lockbox on your front door for people to access while showing your home.
The only person authorized to open the door to your home is a licensed real estate agent. They get the code to your home by scheduling an appointment either through a secure showing center or through the office of the listing agent. In both scenarios, verification of their status as a real estate agent happens prior to committing to the appointment.
There are 3 different types of lockboxes
I’m sharing with you today:
Combo lock, option one. These are about $30 at Lowes. This requires a four digit pin number in the right order to open. The number is given to the agent with the understanding that it should not be shared with any unauthorized users. There is a large degree of trust that the agent will only use it during their viewing window. No records can be kept to know whether the agent went to the house. If you are an agent and have shown houses that frequently have these locks you will notice that agents don’t change the pin numbers out very often. How many of your debit cards have the same PIN number even though they tell you to diversify? Same concept.
Combo lock, option two. Also purchased at Lowes, this combo lock is pretty easy to hack into. Four digits are required but in no particular order. If your lock combo is 1234 - the numbers 2134, 4321, 3421, etc. will open the lock as long as those four numbers are punched. This reduces the number of possible combinations to a couple hundred vs. several thousand. If someone wanted to take a few guesses at getting in, they could relatively quickly.
The most secure lock we have for our area is the sentri-lock box. They cost an agent about $100 and in order to access it you need to have a membership to sentri-lock or be given a one-day code. They are phasing out the boxes that require sentry-lock cards (thank you!) and are moving towards having exclusive bluetooth options. These lockboxes keep record of who has entered the home and at what time. The entry log is especially useful if you see something isn’t right in the home or if someone accesses at a time that was not agreed upon when scheduling an appointment.
Selling your house can be scary and thinking about who has access to your home can be even scarier.
If you have looked at real estate throughout Middle Tennessee, you’ll notice that the sentri-lock boxes are most commonly used the closer you get to our larger cities. In the more rural areas, you typically see the combo locks. Most of the agents who primarily work in those areas don’t have access to those boxes adding steps to their job. While it’s not a huge inconvenience, it’s a tool in our industry that is relatively low cost and benefits our clients.
I offer both the combination lock (option 1) and sentri-lock to all of my clients and most choose the sentri-lock box. My favorite part of the box is that it’s a National Association of Realtors backed product that keeps great record of entry. If a code gets passed into the hands of someone it shouldn’t, it would be relatively easy to track down who it was and the one day codes expires after….the one day.
Stay tuned for more safety tips when listing your home!
