How hard could it be to open a door?

How hard could it be to open a door?

Some people think that all real estate agents do is to open a few doors, sell a house, get a check. Isn’t the life of a real estate agent cushy and easy-peasy? Um no, but this post isn’t going to detail all the things agents do to get a buyer from desire to ownership. Instead this is a quick post about the supposedly easiest part of our jobs — opening the doors.

Yesterday was another gorgeous Fall day. My buyers and I were out looking at homes. We got to the one that was most interesting to them. I went up to the front door, opened the electronic box, turned the key holder upside down as I usually do, and realized the key did not feel right. I looked down and I saw two pieces. 

Broken Keys

As you can see from the picture, not only is the key broken in two pieces, but it’s missing a piece. Could we use this somehow to get the front door open? No, we definitely can’t. So I called the listing agent, and she called the seller. She let us know he wasn’t in the area and couldn’t get us another key. So we were out of luck and couldn’t see this specific house this specific day. 

Access is Necessary

Which brings me to my point. In order for buyers to be able to see a house, and potentially fall in love and place an offer and wind up buying it, they have GOT to have access to the home!  There needs to either be a brand new shiny strong sturdy key in the lockbox. If no electronic lockbox, there should be a combination access code on the front door, or some other way to get in.

Backup Keys

There should also be some sort of backup since the following can happen (all true stories!):

• agents forget to put the key back
• they break it
• some lose it
• they might lock it in the house
• the doorknob lock doesn’t work right
• the keyhole gets ice in it in the winter and freezes
• the key falls in the snow and can’t be located
• the lockbox gets jammed and won’t open.

If the agent had another key or a neighbor had a spare or there was some other plan B for access, we would have been able to get in. If that happened, my clients might have fallen in love, and the house could have been sold.  

How hard could it be to open a door?  As it turns out, sometimes it is impossible.

————————–

Originally posted in ActiveRain.