Fredericksburg Texas

After just over a year of finally arriving into the 1980’s and instituting a key lockbox system for use by Fredericksburg, TX realtors, this grand experiment appears on the verge of failure. Readers may be surprise, shocked, humored or indifferent to learn that real estate practitioners in our fine community stubbornly adhere to an antiquated, inefficient and (borderline) reckless method of storing and distributing the keys necessary to facilitate the showing of real property listed for sale in Fredericksburg, TX.

To avoid the potential liability of revealing too much on how keys of listed property are stored, logged, tagged, distributed and/or collected, suffice to say that the stubborn reluctance to recognize the liability inherent with the various haphazard systems of key management employed by local offices would send any risk manager worth his salt into a major tailspin.

Having failed to make any progress with the “liability argument” much has been debated about the “efficiency argument” that holds in wonder a group of professionals who fail to place a value on the time it takes them to wander from office to office picking up and dropping off keys (not to mention the cost of the gas to do so), looking for keys that someone failed to turn in, etc.  Isn’t your time, effort and frustration worth anything to you? What is this saying to your clients?

Failure on the liability and efficiency fronts turns us to the “leadership argument”.  Agents dropping the system cite spotty usage as one reason they are opting out of efficiency (in favor, as it were, of liability and inefficiency).  Our Board of Directors and Officers have within their power the ability to mandate usage of this system. They apparently prefer to build “consensus” and play politics rather than actually lead and make decisions that will protect the entire membership (despite themselves).

The failure to recognize liability, efficiency and/or leadership leaves us nothing left to play except, perhaps, for the “cost argument”.  Agents opting out of the system cite “cost” as a concern (along with the aforementioned lack of universal implementation).  We’re talking about $180/year per agent.  That works out to about $0.50 per day per agent.  Are they really saying they can’t see the wisdom in spending $0.50 per day to make themselves more efficient and to protect themselves and their loved ones from unspeakable liability?  Really?

When times are tough, people have a tendency to cut back on what they may deem to be “luxuries”.  Is a system that boosts efficiency and reduces liability a luxury?  Hardly.  Is $180/year going to break your bank?  Do the math folks.  Add up your time and the cost of your gas and multiply it by the number of times you show property in Fredericksburg, TX.  $0.50 per day…really??!!