A real estate lockbox makes it easy to allow any interested real estate agent and buyers or real estate related professional to access the property.

Homes with lockboxes typically get more showings and sell faster than ones that don’t. If a listing agent or a seller must rearrange their schedule to unlock a house or coordinate a time to be present when the house is showing it can reduce the number of showings.

In San Angelo, we’ve taken it up a notch from the traditional combination lockbox and usually use Supra eKEY lockboxes. They are Bluetooth-enabled lockboxes that only authorized users can open. The San Angelo Board of Realtors are the ones who crown industry-related professionals as authorized users and give them access codes. Think along the lines of Realtors, inspectors, and appraisers.

This doesn’t mean that your house is a free for all for anyone with the magic key! When someone wants access to the house, I contact my clients and wait for approval of every showing before giving them permission to unlock the lockbox.

Every time the lockbox is opened, the person who unlocked it, their contact information, date, time, and even when they placed the key back into the lockbox is tracked.

The particular boxes we use can also completely lockdown during certain hours where no one has access. I usually set those from 9 pm to 8 am.

I personally prefer these lockboxes to traditional combination boxes, hiding a key, or asking the seller to leave the door unlocked. With a traditional combination lockbox, the combination could fall into the wrong hands, and sellers are essentially leaving their homes wide open to possible theft. The same goes for hiding a key or leaving the door unlocked.