While September may be recognized as Realtor® Safety Month, safety should be a top priority every day of the year—a year-round commitment that involves creating safer practices, stronger awareness and a culture of preparedness for those who work in the industry.
Today, that means being aware of more than just your physical surroundings when meeting prospective buyers at a property or hosting an open house. In fact, given the rapid rise of artificial intelligence—where scams abound—the risks have continued to evolve along with the way agents conduct business, creating concerns that weren’t part of the job a few short years ago.
Trust your gut: staying safe in today’s world
“I believe the digital world we work in today has created very real safety concerns for real estate agents,” says Nina Hollander, who started her career in New York City and has been in the business going on 36 years.
“I honestly didn’t have these concerns in my early years,” she adds, pointing to the fact that real estate professionals are more exposed than ever before.
“Our photos, phone numbers, email addresses, listings, professional profiles and information about where we’ll be and when are readily available online. That visibility may be part of doing business, but it also comes with risks that simply weren’t as prevalent years ago,” says Hollander, who has taken a proactive approach to limiting the amount of her personal information that is accessible to the general public.
“I used to have my photo on my real estate signs,” she explains, “but I don’t anymore. After receiving too many phone calls and emails from people who were clearly bad actors rather than legitimate buyers or sellers, I decided there was no reason to provide one more piece of personal information than necessary.”
A broker/Realtor® at Coldwell Banker Realty in Charlotte, North Carolina, Hollander points to trusting your instincts as her No. 1 piece of advice when it comes to staying safe on the job.
“Your safety comes first,” says Hollander, who advises real estate professionals not to jump up and run out the door to meet a stranger at a property simply because they call and want to see it.
“No possible sale or commission is worth putting your safety at risk,” she says. “And if, at any point, a situation makes you uncomfortable, leave. Don’t worry about being polite or potentially offending someone.”
Jamie Lemmons—a Realtor® with Keller Williams Preferred Realty in Orland Park, Illinois—shares the same sentiment when it comes to Realtor® safety, underscoring the importance of keeping your guard up and never becoming complacent no matter how many years of experience you have under your belt.
“Relying on your intuition and trusting your gut is monumental; intuition doesn’t lie, so always trust your gut. We’ve all been in situations—myself included—where your guard went up, and maybe that’s when you just keep driving by the property,” says Lemmons, emphasizing the fact that no paycheck is worth one’s life.
“Our world has become more uncertain, and it could even be post-COVID, but we’re seeing a lot more scams and a lot more people looking for opportunity. Regardless of whether it’s $10,000 or $5 million in a transaction, there’s quite a bit of money there, and I think what we’re starting to see is people looking at that and targeting the industry as an area of opportunity where cash is flowing,” adds Lemmons, who points to the importance of vetting prospective clients and being aware of who’s calling and who you’re meeting with.
To that end, Lemmons points to Forewarn—an identity verification and risk assessment tool—as an essential part of her business, a non-negotiable in her day-to-day work.
“Whether I’m meeting to show property, doing the buyer-broker agreement or going to a listing appointment, I’m vetting everybody through Forewarn,” says Lemmons. “And I can tell you that it has come to be a lifesaver for me because it really gives you a picture of what you could or could not be walking into.”
Rethinking safety standards: looking beyond education and prevention
Given the nature of the real estate industry, where agents are routinely going into people’s homes or meeting at properties, prevention can go a long way—but it can’t account for every situation a real estate professional may encounter.
“Safety education and prevention strategies are important, but they’re only one part of the equation,” says Kenny Kelley, founder and CEO of Silent Beacon—a safety technology company that creates wearable, Bluetooth-enabled panic buttons and real-time emergency communication solutions.
Pointing to the National Association of Realtors®’ (NAR) latest safety report, which found that 86% of residential agents showed a property alone in 2024, while 22% experienced a situation that made them fear for their personal safety, Kelley notes that the industry must also think about how quickly an agent can get help, who is alerted and what information is available when every second matters.
“When so many agents have experienced moments where they felt unsafe, we have to look beyond basic safety reminders and ask a bigger question: Do agents have the right systems in place when something goes wrong?”
And while NAR’s findings point to the importance of Realtor® Safety Month when it comes to educating and empowering real estate professionals, the numbers also show the need to rethink safety as the risks continue to evolve.
“Real estate professionals are trained to think about safety before something happens: meet clients in public when possible, share your schedule, trust your instincts. And while those steps matter, the safety blind spot is what happens in the moment when prevention fails; when a routine showing takes an unexpected turn, an agent realizes they need help,” says Kelley.
“For many agents, working alone is simply part of the job. They are walking into unfamiliar homes, meeting new people and making decisions independently every day,” he adds. “A complete safety plan cannot just focus on avoiding risk; it has to account for what happens after something goes wrong and an agent needs support.”
Drilling down further, Kelley goes on to explain that during an emergency, the first few moments are critical, as they often shape everything that happens next.
“For real estate agents working alone, the challenge is not just whether help exists; it’s whether they can safely and quickly reach that help when they need it most,” he says.
“Effective safety planning has to reflect the reality of the job, not just the ideal scenario,” concludes Kelley. “The goal is to remove the barriers between an emergency happening and help arriving because those first moments matter.”
Agent safety as an organizational responsibility
Brokerages across the board are beginning to treat agent safety as an organizational responsibility rather than a burden individual agents should have to manage alone.
In fact, Florida-based Watson Realty Corp. recently partnered with Bond—providing more than 1,000 agents across Florida and Georgia with AI-powered personal security.
Providing another layer of preventative security wherever their work may take them, Bond is a personal security platform designed to offer professional support when someone is traveling, meeting a new person, entering an unfamiliar location, or otherwise working independently. The platform combines technology with access to trained security professionals who are available around the clock.
And while many blame AI for creating new safety risks, at the same time, it’s also being hailed as a proactive safety tool.
“We’ve already seen how AI can streamline manual processes, improve efficiency and reduce errors, but I believe there is also an opportunity for AI to play an important role in personal safety,” says Watson Realty Corp. President William Watson III.
“The real value will be in using technology to help identify potential risks earlier and give people an opportunity to respond before a situation becomes dangerous,” he adds. “If AI can help us become more proactive instead of simply reacting after something happens, that can be a tremendous benefit.”
Given the advancement of technology in the past few years alone, Watson notes that the way in which real estate professionals work has changed—with agents being more accessible than ever while also spending more time working independently and outside of a traditional office environment.
“In many cases, an agent’s first interaction with a prospective customer may take place outside of the office, with very limited information about that individual. That creates a different level of risk,” he explains.
“Technology has given our agents greater flexibility and efficiency, but it also makes it increasingly important that they have access to resources that can help protect them while they are working alone,” he adds.
“We have always cared about our people and their safety. When we became aware of Bond and what the service could provide, we saw an opportunity to give our associates another layer of protection. We hope they never need it, but if they do, we want them to know they are not alone,” says Watson, who hopes preventative personal security becomes a more common workplace benefit.
“There is an old saying that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. When it comes to the safety of our people, I believe that certainly applies,” he concludes.
