New agents are vulnerable, and in ways they may not even understand. They have a new job, and admittedly, one with a steep learning curve. They may be divorced and have children at home. Or they may be the breadwinner for the family. They have to make a sale quickly. But the two fastest ways to make a sale are fraught with danger. Just ask Joan Malone. She survived a vicious attack from a "buyer" and is telling other agents how to protect themselves.

"Working the phones and holding open houses are two of the fastest ways to get a sale," says Malone, a top producing RE/MAX agent in Irving, Texas. "But...they pose very real dangers. When you are new and a single mother with no customer base, where are you going to get business? You take phones and you are going to get whoever calls, and you put yourself on the line."

New agents, out of the need to make a sale will take unnecessary chances with customers, explains Malone. "I know of agents who will get in the car with anyone who calls and show them houses. That is neither wise for the agent nor is it good for the home owner."

Just recently, Malone had listed a $300,000 property. The owner called upset - someone had taken very expensive blood pressure medication ($300) from the kitchen cabinet. Malone quickly checked the showings for that day. A new agent from another realty company had brought a "scruffy-looking" man in a "beat-up" old car to see the home. When Malone called the agent and asked a few questions, she learned that the rookie had done nothing to qualify the buyer before jumping into the car and taking him around to expensive properties such as her client's. The agent "remembered" that the man had opened all the cabinet doors at each property she showed him.

The medicine and the man were long gone. The agent had failed to get a license number from the man's car, a work number or a driver's license. The home phone she did take down just led to an answering service - a dead end. And of course, she failed to get an address where the man could be found.

"I chewed her out," says Malone. "I told her she didn't know how close she could have come to getting hurt."

And Malone should know. "I had injuries that almost killed me. Don't let it happen to you," she warned the girl.

But the new agent was unfamiliar with Malone's story. She didn't know that she was talking with a woman who had survived multiple life-threatening knife wounds at the hands of a thief posing as a buyer during a routine showing.

Malone reflects. "I was one of the more cautious agents even before I was attacked, but I didn't listen to that gut feeling."

"You may not see any outward signs that something is wrong - you just have a feeling. But a sale is simply not worth risking your life."

The man who attacked Malone in March of 1997 was clean cut, polite, soft-spoken, and was accompanied by family. She says those things threw her off track, and led her to ignore her feelings.

She had shown the man, his girlfriend, and her mother a few homes in January. One in particular seemed perfect. He told Malone that he was an attorney in the middle of dissolving a partnership and that he would be paying cash for the home. Malone had just sold a cash deal, so it didn't seem odd to her. And the transition explained why he didn't have the usual credentials. But Malone knows her guard still should have up, but she was led astray by buying signs. But the sale never happened. She was dealing with a violent and pathological liar.

"I just didn't like him," remembers Malone. "I argued with myself - he hasn't said anything, done anything that I can put my finger on that bothers me. But when I saw him as he was led away in handcuffs -I finally realized what it was that had made me uneasy about him - it was the way he looked at me."

Was her attack planned? "I don't think he put it all together that day. I think he realized that I was showing houses alone, and over time he felt pressured by his girlfriend, or wife, or whatever she was, and he wasn't coming up with a house. He was telling her he was working when he was not. We know he had it planned - he had a daytimer with my name and "Get money" out to the side.

The man came back in March and asked to look at more homes. Malone felt frightened and asked him to make an appointment. She even told her husband that this particular customer made her uneasy.

But they went out together the next day. He and Malone looked at a few houses and he asked her to take him back to one in particular - the family was absent. Unbeknownst to Malone, he had taken a kitchen knife from one of the other homes. When they were alone, he stabbed her repeatedly about the neck and shoulders. Thinking she was dead, he took her watch, ring, bracelet, and stole her car, driving it back to his own car.

He took the stolen items to a pawn shop near his own home and got $700. In the commission of the crime, the man had cut an artery in his arm, yet the pawn shop clerk failed to report a bleeding man pawning a woman's jewelry to the police.

When the man arrived at his home, he told his wife/girlfriend? "I got paid today."

The man was quickly arrested and has been sent to prison where he will serve a minimum of twenty years before becoming eligible for parole.

Malone went from hovering between life and death to returning to work full time within three months. She does a few things differently, one of which is talking to new and experienced agents when ever she has a chance. "I want the experience to at least make a difference in protecting someone else," she says.

One thing she never does is open houses. " I believe that if you tell sellers up front what the risk is for them and you, they will agree. You are opening your door to anyone who wants to walk in. If someone comes with an agent ( her own experience notwithstanding) they are more likely to be a qualified buyer. If four or five people come in, I can't be in every room. There is no way I can effectively protect the home. I also tell them that most agents do open houses to pick up customers, not to sell the house."

What can sellers do instead of an open house? "I tell them the number one thing they need is a qualified buyer. Agents don't want to haul people around in their car who can't buy."

A lot of agents won't do open houses, says Malone. "The only ones who do them are new agents, and I will tell them, never do one alone. I will walk away from a listing if the owners think the only way to sell a home is through an open house."

As far as working with new customers, Malone qualifies her customers before going out with them. "If they give me a phone number, I always call that number. If it goes into a voice mail, and they only give you only one number, there may be reason to be suspicious. I ask who do you work for? I get the phone number of the business and copy of their driver's license before I take them out. I tell new customers, "Our office has a new policy, and I need a copy of your driver's license before I take you out. I never have a problem."

"If you are new, you might be scared to ask, afraid you'll hurt the prospect's feelings. But people have to show their driver's licenses to see apartments - why not homes?

"I worry about new agents that just run and jump at a call. They have never seen this person in their lives and they are going to meet him at a vacant house. You just have to ask more questions. I always ask new customers to come to the office so that I can meet them and others can see them. If they don't want to come to the office, I don't want to work with that person."

"You just have to have common sense. If I do have to meet someone that I don't know, I put their license tag number in my voice mail. If their car doesn't match up with the price of the house they are looking, I don't let them in the house."

Malone cautions, "It isn't just the new agents that are guilty of taking unnecessary risks - it is also the seasoned agent who has been doing things the same way for so long that they let they just don't think about it anymore."

"We all need to be more careful."

Published: November 6, 1998

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