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If Sacramento Agents Abandon Old Supra Lockboxes at Your Home
Old Supra lockboxes become inoperable when they expire in December 2015
We will soon have a crisis in Sacramento regarding Supra lockboxes. Mark my words. Saturdays are always “lockbox Saturdays” for me in my Sacramento real estate business. This means I drive around to my closings from that week and retrieve my lockboxes. I generally do it myself because picking up Supra lockboxes brings closure to me; satisfaction that the home has sold, my sellers are thrilled, and I will get another fabulous review added to my client reviews because those are my two goals for every closed sale: 1) make my sellers ecstatic and 2) get a good review.
The reason the crisis is about to happen was fairly clear to me yesterday. One of the lockboxes I picked up was from a home in Elk Grove that I’ve sold 5 times or more. It was a long listing with its share of complexities and challenges. The box I retrieved was an old Supra lockbox, prior to the two-for-one iBox exchange at MetroList. In another 3 months, though, those old lockboxes will no longer work. That Supra lockbox will expire. It means it won’t open and can’t be removed from the gas meter or wherever the agent stuck it by utilizing a key fob or a display key. It is of no value to me or to anyone.
I brought it home and stuck it on the shelf with my other 26 lockboxes that will no longer work by the end of the year. As I shoved it into the lineup of my sad and pathetic display of expired lockboxes, I realized that MetroList has screwed me out of $1,300. MetroList promised me that I could keep my lockboxes as long as they still had juice in them, and many of those lockboxes are at 70% of power. They could last another 5 years.
As a result, I did not turn all of my lockboxes during the two-for-one exchange at MetroList, only about half of them. The other half I kept. Soon as the exchange was over, MetroList then announced all of our old lockboxes will expire at the end of December. Don’t you love those guys? If I had known they were about to reverse that decision, I would have turned in those lockboxes at the exchange and received $1,300 worth of brand new lockboxes. I trusted them to be truthful. In real estate this is known as a material fact.
Wait, you must be saying, while you may feel empathetic toward me, seriously, what does it mean to you, the consumer, to homeowners in Sacramento? How do these old Supra lockboxes affect you? I’ll tell you. Although I am a real estate agent with a conscience, even I wondered why I was removing an old lockbox that is of no use to me. Sure, I admit it crossed my mind. Why did I drive 30 minutes there and 30 minutes back to my home to pick up a worthless item? Well, like, I said, I have a conscience. I have an ethical responsibility to the buyers who purchase the homes I list.
I’m betting there will be many agents who will say to themselves, screw it. I’m not removing the lockbox. And they’ll abandon the lockbox, leave it there. You know they will. If an old lockbox is not removed by the end of December, MetroList says it will no longer work. If you find an old Supra lockbox attached to your home, there is recourse. First, write down the serial number and call MetroList to report it. MetroList has the ability to look up the agent from the serial number on the lockbox. Then, you can call the agent and / or the agent’s broker. It is that agent’s responsibility to remove the lockbox, even if he has to haul over a reciprocating saw. MetroList is 916.922.7584.
Sacramento MetroList to Agents: We Lied, Too Bad, So Sad
Just when us Sacramento REALTORS thought it was safe again to bend over in the shower, our Mafia Sacramento MetroList proves us wrong. About 6 months after MetroList announced we were NOT required to sell our lockboxes back to MetroList at 60 bucks (or so) a pop and we could continue to use those lockboxes until the day they died, MetroList, without explanation, has reversed that decision. Wait, it gets better. Remember that shitty $60 trade-in allowance offered for the iBox Exchange? Now it’s only $20. They cut it by two thirds. But not wanting to be total assholes, apparently, MetroList will give every agent until the end of December 2015 to comply and buy new Bluetooth iBoxes, the Supra BT LE.
The way I found out was by logging into my Sacramento MetroList yesterday to read the announcement — which has since vanished from its homepage — so I thought it best to alert my fellow agents that some of us are about to get screwed even worse than last fall. If you sell 2 or 3 homes a year, this probably is not a big deal to you. But if you’re like me, a Sacramento REALTOR who moves more than 100 homes a year, it totally sucks. My Supra account reports that I personally maintain 62 lockboxes in my inventory, and 12 of those are new Bluetooth iBoxes. This means I must sell 50 lockboxes, once worth about $5,000, for 20 cents on the dollar. Then I can replace that inventory by blowing $6,250 (*including tax for those of you doing the math) for the new Bluetooth iBoxes.
No matter how you look at it, if I want to maintain my present inventory, I’ve gotta dig into my nickel jar to find $5,000 to donate to MetroList. Not to mention drag out my red wagon to load up 50 lockboxes, and pull it along like a pack mule in 100-degree summer heat for 2 1/2 hours to reach MetroList. They should send a Rolls Royce to pick me up for the money I’m throwing at them.
What happened to the promise that we can keep our old lockboxes? I guess we’re SOL. My lockboxes still have plenty of juice left in them and should fully function at least another 4 to 5 years. They work, and when they don’t work for some reason, they can be fixed without much trouble. When a Bluetooth iBox malfunctions, you’re up a creek without a bolt cutters. I had a Bluetooth iBox die after only 20 showings. Stuck on the handrail of a home in Land Park. Just refused to operate.
I can speculate about why MetroList reversed itself without warning and without a conversation nor an explanation, but that would be pure speculation. It’s probably about the money, though. It’s always about the money. Especially when they say it’s not about the money, you can rest assured, it’s about the money.
Agents: If you don’t replace your lockboxes by December 31, MetroList will automatically fine you. Keep it up, and they’ll send you to, get this, a “tribunal hearing.” That’s a fine how do you do.
