4 ms·

I've seen realtors ask for ID unless you're accompanied by another realtor (who would leave a card). Basically they want a record of people through the house in

I've seen realtors ask for ID unless you're accompanied by another realtor (who would leave a card). Basically they want a record of people through the house in case something does happen. You could easily make a fake business card, of course... professional courtesy means a realtor seldom asks another for an id. But this would likely only work briefly in a given area once word got out.

emodendroket 6y ago
I bought a house before and attended a number of open houses. I signed my name on a sheet but was not asked to present ID. In some cases (I guess where the realtor figured I wasn't going to buy? Not sure) they just let me walk around and paid no attention to me at all.
cortesoft 6y ago
That isn't how an open house works (at least in my experience buying a house in Los Angeles in 2018). They advertise the hours, put up a bunch of balloons, and anyone can walk in. They ask you to sign a sheet so they can contact you, but I never saw them make anyone sign it or request an ID. I visited maybe 30-50 houses doing open houses, and a good half of those weren't with our realtor (or they arrived well after we did).
sib 6y ago
I went to 50+ open houses in the 3 years pre-Covid (finally bought a place just before it started) and was never once asked for ID. They usually ask you to write down contact info on a sheet, which I do using intentionally impossible-to-read handwriting to avoid follow-up spam.
- emodendroket 6y ago
  Three years? Now I’m afraid to ever sell my house.
  - fshbbdssbbgdd 6y ago
    I bought my house in a raging micro bubble in the Bay Area and got the first one I made an offer on. Really just depends how much you care about getting a good deal. I did some math and figured it wasn’t worth the effort.
  - sib 6y ago
    There's a lot of stuff that looks better online than in real life ;) And we took quite a while to figure out what we really wanted (and we were comfortable living in the place we were in, so we didn't need to make a change...) We only ever made three offers, two of them on places we saw on the same day.

emodendroket 6y ago

I bought a house before and attended a number of open houses. I signed my name on a sheet but was not asked to present ID. In some cases (I guess where the realtor figured I wasn't going to buy? Not sure) they just let me walk around and paid no attention to me at all.

cortesoft 6y ago

That isn't how an open house works (at least in my experience buying a house in Los Angeles in 2018). They advertise the hours, put up a bunch of balloons, and anyone can walk in. They ask you to sign a sheet so they can contact you, but I never saw them make anyone sign it or request an ID. I visited maybe 30-50 houses doing open houses, and a good half of those weren't with our realtor (or they arrived well after we did).

sib 6y ago

I went to 50+ open houses in the 3 years pre-Covid (finally bought a place just before it started) and was never once asked for ID. They usually ask you to write down contact info on a sheet, which I do using intentionally impossible-to-read handwriting to avoid follow-up spam.

emodendroket 6y ago
Three years? Now I’m afraid to ever sell my house.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 6y ago
  I bought my house in a raging micro bubble in the Bay Area and got the first one I made an offer on. Really just depends how much you care about getting a good deal. I did some math and figured it wasn’t worth the effort.
- sib 6y ago
  There's a lot of stuff that looks better online than in real life ;) And we took quite a while to figure out what we really wanted (and we were comfortable living in the place we were in, so we didn't need to make a change...) We only ever made three offers, two of them on places we saw on the same day.