Photo: Dave Basner
When a house is listed for sale, real estate agents often bring prospective buyers in it to show them the home. The listing agent typically gives instructions on how the showing agents can get in - sometimes there is a lockbox hanging on the doorknob, sometimes there is a hidden key, and sometimes a side door might even be left open. It's all perfectly normal. What isn't normal is when an agent enters a home that is not for sale to show it to clients, but that's exactly what happened recently, and it was all caught on the homeowner's doorbell camera and then shared on TikTok.
The footage shows the agent walk up to the door, ring the doorbell and await the arrival of his clients. The homeowners were at work but were alerted to the visitor by the Ring app on their phone. The woman who posted the video said in her voiceover, "I'm thinking they're maybe some religious group or salesman. I'm not sure at this point."
Then the clients arrive and walk around the house with the agent. At this point, the homeowner sets off her house alarm, which brings almost everyone back to the front of the house. The agent is missing, but shows up again when he opens the front door. He had gone into the home through the back door and unlocked the front door to let everyone inside.
That's when the homeowner calls the police, and she also shared video of their arrival, which occurred just as the agent was leaving. In that clip, she is also seen returning from work to check and see if anything was stolen from her home. While she is in there, the agent once again enters without permission, but this time to apologize to her.
The homeowner said, "I don't believe that they were casing my house or trying to sell my house out from under me. He did seem sincere." She also revealed that the agent explained that it was an accident and he was supposed to be showing the home next door. He added that a neighbor told him to go through the backdoor.
The homeowner was surprised that the clients didn't notice that the interior looked nothing like the photos of the home they had seen. She also stated that the police told her there wasn't much that could be done, but she saw no need to press charges. However, she might still report the incident to the real estate licensing bureau. She also noted in the caption, "Had I not had a Ring camera I would never have known this happened at all!"
Commenters weren't as kind, saying things like, "I'm a realtor. You should sue him and file a complaint with the real estate commission! This is so illegal, he should lose his license," and "You could totally sue his real estate company. A bunch of strangers just cased the entire insides of your property," and "You need to press charges. It will not be the first nor last time this guy has done this. There is always a lockbox on houses for showings."
The homeowner added a couple more videos giving more details to everything that happened and you can check them out here.