We learned recently of the tragic loss of Yuk-Ying (Anita) Mui, a member of the REALTOR^® community from Markham Ontario. Click here to read the statement shared by TRREB.

Our deepest sympathies go to Ms. Mui’s family and friends and colleagues. We don’t normally comment on matters such as these, especially those which are actively under police investigation, but it seems like we would be doing a disservice to our members if we didn’t speak up about safety at this time.

We’ve heard of too many incidents where REALTOR^® safety is at risk or compromised in some way to not be making this topic a regular priority. It’s something we think and talk about at the Board table as well, which is why our Chair, Christian Twomey, made safety a focus in his remarks at the Forecast Conference, calling for organized real estate to come together to minimize risk to us all.

In the first few years I was a licensed REALTOR^® in Vancouver, I was so focused on building my real estate career that I didn’t even consider my personal safety. Within those first few years, a female REALTOR^® in Vancouver was attacked in a condominium parkade. She thankfully survived the attack, and I remember thinking at the time that I should be more careful. Then some time passed and after a while, I continued to meet new clients without taking steps to identify them or bring another person with me, or have any kind of strategy in case I was in danger.

A couple of years later I became the subject of harassment, which took the form of vulgar messages left on my old school voice pager and harassing calls to my home. I was really terrified until the police investigation traced the calls. It was a person known to me within the real estate industry. I was discouraged from pressing charges at the time, so I didn’t. I would have made a different decision today.

Now, 37 years later, even though I am the first to advise my colleagues to never work alone, I have still not practiced safely 100 per cent of the time. This is despite hearing over the years about REALTORS^® who were harmed or tragically killed while doing their job in many jurisdictions across North America.

Each time we hear about these horrible incidents we provide our condolences to the affected families and call out to our respective boards to advise our members to practice safely. I worry that many of our vulnerable members will have the same reaction I had in the early years. Initial enhanced wariness and then a return to prioritizing building the “sales funnel” over personal safety.

We regularly find ourselves in the following situations:

• Someone unknown to us contacts us regarding our listing and wants to view it.
• Someone unknown to us contacts us to view a property which is not listed by us.
• Someone unknown to us wants us to view their property and provide them with an evaluation.
• We are asked by our sellers to provide them with a public “open house.”

For all of these every day real estate occurrences we need to have a safety plan.

We have options. We can work with a buddy, or require that the prospects provide us with their ID prior to meeting, or hold secure open houses where we limit the number of attendees and require them to provide us with their identification, and we can also utilize apps to track our locations and/or alert authorities. We can deploy some or all of these safety measures.

CREA has provided us with a training video and checklist to help us recognize potential risks and hazards, as well as how to implement personal safety measures for ourselves, our clients and our teams.

In addition, since 2019, AREA has partnered with Kinetic Global to help protect members when they are alone or feel unsafe. You can download the Kinetic Global app to your mobile device from the app store. 

With September being REALTOR^® Safety Month, CREB^® is also hosting a Safety Strategies course for REALTORS^® on Sept. 12, featuring Scott Simon, who will discuss effective strategies to mitigate safety risks and empower members to handle any situation with confidence. You can click here to register.

CREB^® members can also access an exclusive REALTOR^® Safety Training audio course for FREE! This course offers invaluable safety tips and techniques, featuring real-life stories from fellow associates and re-enactments by professional voice actors. Click here to register.

The more extreme dangers are thankfully rare, but the onus is on each of us to stay vigilant and build a safety plan that works and is repeatable. We all deserve to be able practice safely and enjoy success without having to put ourselves in vulnerable positions in order to make a living.

I re-commit today to practice safely, please join me.