The local real estate community is scrambling to make things safer for their clients. It has recently been reported in the news and at real estate brokerages that during a beautiful Sunday afternoon of Open Houses in the city of Barrie, two home owners were the unsuspecting victims of theft.

When you think about it, it doesn’t take very long for people with sticky fingers to seize an unsupervised opportunity to grab jewellery, small electronics or family heirlooms, and these situations leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouths.

Because of these unfortunate circumstances I have chosen to put my clients at ease by introducing new rules when I conduct my Open Houses and I am happy to say that these changes have been met with favourable reviews.

This past weekend I held an Open House at one of my newest listings. I posted a notice letting visitors know that due to recent thefts my assistant and I would only be letting two groups of people through at once and would be locking the door when needed. Also, once inside, we reinforced the registration procedure and asked to view on piece of ID.

Everyone who visited the Open House was quite receptive to the idea of stricter guidelines and we heard stories of other agents doing the same thing but not to this extent. We were very pleased that the people we spoke to agreed with and appreciated our efforts to make the home selling experience a safer one for everyone.