High-Tech Key Safes Increase Buyer Traffic, Convenience
Check out almost any home for sale in the San Fernando Valley and you’re bound to notice a small key safe secured to the front doorknob.
More than 90% of homes for sale in the Valley have a key safe--also referred to as a key box or lockbox--attached to allow agents easy access to homes that are on the market, according to the San Fernando Valley Board of Realtors.
Homes for sale on the Westside, in contrast, almost never have a key safe or lockbox attached. Over the hill, it seems, most real estate brokers and home sellers prefer to arrange for a personal tour with the listing agent or broker.
“Westside brokers like to be more in control and not let any other brokers talk to their seller,” said Temmy Walker, vice president of Prudential-Rodeo Realty in Studio City. “There’s a different culture in the Valley.”
Most listing brokers prefer not to personally show a home to each prospective buyer and, Walker added, about 98% of her sellers have no problem with allowing other agents into their homes through access to a key safe.
Perhaps Valley sellers feel a bit more secure with the key safes that are offered to brokers and agents through the Valley’s realty board. In the Valley, agents use a sophisticated electronic key safe that requires each agent to punch in his or her access code before gaining access to the house key kept inside. The listing agent can easily get a printout of who has visited the house and when. The sellers can also program the key safe to restrict access to certain hours of the day.
The Valley board’s old system--which was replaced during the last year--was a mechanical one. The new system is electronic. While agents had to enter their own code each time they accessed a key safe, it was a hassle for agents to track who had been in the house.
The L. A. Board of Realtors is using an even less sophisticated system than the one that the Valley board recently left behind. In Los Angeles, most brokers who use a key safe are using old lockboxes that merely require a three-letter access code. Brokers use the same code to get into a particular home, so there’s very little certainty of who’s paid a visit. “These lockboxes are not safe at all,” Walker said.
Now that the Valley has converted to a high-tech system for vouchsafing keys, the acceptance of these devices is almost universal.
“A house is not on the market unless it’s available to show,” Walker said. “Unless it’s an extraordinary house, I’m not going to bother setting up an appointment. There are too many other houses on the market.”
Almost all of the 7,000 Valley board members and 3,000 additional subscribers to its Multiple Listing Service have a small calculator-like credit card that has to be reactivated every month to gain access to any home in the Valley. Each cardholder has to punch in a personal identification code that works much like a bank-card PIN.
“You know exactly when somebody was there,” said Mary Lou Williams, assistant executive vice president of the Valley Board of Realtors. The listing agent can use his or her card to electronically read all the information recorded by the key safe. Then the agent can get a voice, fax or computer readout by connecting to a computer or phone. The box sells for $58 and each card is $52.
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“It gives the agent a lot of control,” Williams said, and many agents use the computerized list of visitors as a mailing list when a home is reduced in price or sold.
Not every seller is eager to have a key safe attached to the property, and not every seller likes the idea that innumerable agents can stroll into their home while they’re at work. For homeowners with an alarm, there’s the dilemma of whether to turn the alarm off during the day or include the alarm code on a slip of paper in the key safe, along with the key.
Surprisingly, according to crime prevention officers in Van Nuys and Simi Valley, there have been no reported incidents of theft or burglary associated with unauthorized use of key safes.
“There are a lot of legitimate reasons people might not want to have a key safe,” said Bobbi Miller, vice president and manager of Fred Sands Realtors in Woodland Hills.
There are celebrities who want their privacy and just plain folk who may have a priceless art collection or guard dogs roaming the house. Some people simply want their listing agent to accompany any visitors. There are also sellers who don’t like the idea of signing a piece of paper that says they “waive and release brokers and the Board (of Realtors) from any responsibility for any loss.”
And, in Agoura, for example, sellers often find that the only way to ensure easy access when they are not home is to have a key safe for Valley board members and a separate key safe--with separate coding--for Conejo Valley agents and brokers.
Sellers who don’t feel comfortable with a key safe may want to include their phone numbers in the MLS so that agents can easily arrange an appointment. Another option is leaving a key with the listing broker.
“In the Westside, the listing broker must usually accompany the buyer and the buyer’s agent,” Miller said. “That’s not true in the San Fernando Valley.” And because there are so many homes that do have a key safe for easy access, “it can be a handicap not to have one,” she said.
