Real- estate agents making safety a priority

CHICAGO — Sonia Figueroa was spooked. So she decided to get a gun.

The Century 21-affiliated real-estate broker has been working in Chicago for more than a decade. She knows the basics of staying safe, tactics many in the field say they follow: Let someone know where you are; don’t post too many personal details online.

But this year, unsettling incidents made Figueroa think twice about protecting herself. In February, while conducting a Facebook Live video from a vacant lot, Figueroa was attacked by a pit bull. Her screams were broadcast.

In April, her Portage Park, Illinois, office was robbed by three teenagers, who threatened her and took her purse.

The next month, while showing a client a vacant property in Avondale, Figueroa heard footsteps and conversation on the second floor. She believes it was a drug deal. All she knows for sure is that a man began running down the stairs toward where she was standing.

“I told the client, ‘Oh my God, we’ve gotta run for it,’ ” she said.

She and her client weren’t harmed, but Figueroa was fed up.

So she enrolled in a concealed-carry course.

After 13 years in the industry, “I never would have thought I would be here right now, talking about guns,” she said.

But staying safe in a field that involves visiting vacant homes and being present at publicly advertised events is something many in the real-estate business said they often consider.

A National Association of Realtors survey on members’ safety released in August found many reported feeling fear while hosting open houses or otherwise showing vacant or model homes.

In the 2017 Realtors report, 25 percent of men and 44 percent of women said they had experienced a situation that made them fear for their personal safety or the safety of their personal information. About half (52 percent of men, 57 percent of women) said they carry weapons; the most common were pepper spray, carried by 19 percent of agents, followed by guns, which 16 percent carried.

“The list just keeps getting longer of what tools people are using,” said Jessica Lautz, managing director of survey research for the Realtors group.

Many said growing a business in a competitive industry like real estate creates the temptation to be the first — to respond, to host an open house — even if something feels off.

“It’s really easy to get caught in the emotion of that opportunity and wanting to help people quickly,” said Sotheby’s International Realty broker Stephanie LoVerde.

Real estate organizations offer guidance; in September, the Chicago Association of Realtors hosted a crime-prevention seminar and self-defense class. The group urges agents to secure valuables, walk behind visitors instead of in front of them and know cellphone signal strength in a home’s various rooms.

When Figueroa began the firearm class in November, she said the instructor told her she was the second broker to come in.

The first, the instructor told her, had been raped.

“I want to choose and have control of my own destiny,” she said, “because at this point, I should have been dead.”