The Crosstown Properties team has just about seen it all – nearly 20 in residential property management will do that for you. Our goal with this blog is to offer valuable insights that only come with extensive professional experience in the field.

One such area of insight is showing rental properties to prospective tenants – in particular, safety tips. Over the next several months we will be doing a blog series on our top tips for safely showing rental properties. Stay tuned!

Tip #1: Make sure agents are licensed before allowing them access to the property.

Sometimes people call our office asking for the combination to the combo lock on one of our listed properties. This question is an immediate red flag alert – we always have an MLS Supra lockbox on our available properties and REALTORS have access via their electronic key app. This method of access keeps track of the license numbers that access properties as insurance in case anything untoward were to occur.

We will politely inquire why Supra Key access isn’t an option. Most often the person will say they are a licensed agent but are not a REALTOR. This means they don’t belong to a board of Realtors and therefore don’t have a Supra Key.

Instead of just taking their word for it, we ask for their license number and check the Texas Real Estate Commission website to ensure it is a real and active license that matches the name provided.

It’s actually happened more than once that the license for that particular agent has expired!

Once we confirm that the person on the phone has a name, brokerage, and active license number that matches the records in the TREC website, we will give them the combination to the combo lock so that they can show the property.

In this way we allow licensed agents who are not members of a board to also show the property – optimizing prospective applicants and minimizing vacancy – while at the same time making sure that we’re not giving the combo code to someone who is not a licensed agent!

People often find us by searching “property management Austin,” “rental home management austin, tx,” “property manager near me,” and “property management companies austin, tx.” We’d love to hear how you found us!