We are in the midst of a keybox exchange in the Columbus area. The old gray Supra keyboxes many of us in the Columbus Board of REALTORS® have used are being swapped out for new blue keyboxes. Many newer agents had only blue keyboxes... some REALTORS® have had a mixture of boxes. I had only old gray keyboxes.
My personal favorite was my old gray keybox that was damaged when my sellers tried to saw into it to get into their house. They lost their house keys.. they actually thought their house keys were stolen. Long story... the keybox was impenetrable!! It still worked...usually.
The sellers said they had the police try to saw it off... ??
The difference in the boxes? The old gray keyboxes had contacts, the DisplayKEY was inserted in the front of the lockbox. The new blue keyboxes use infrared and beam the information from the DisplayKEY, PDA or phone. My favorite old gray keybox one of the contracts was a tad caddywampus (a technical term) so you needed to be very resolute in placing the DisplayKEY or eKEY in the front of the keybox.
"Members are being offered a "1 for 1" exchange for their old gray AEII keyboxes during the Exchange. Also DisplayKEY users will be able to trade in their old DisplayKEY for a brand new one - Free -- during the Exchange."
Yeah!!!! I believe when our board first started using Supra products rather than the old combination lockboxes, the first generation (at our board anyway) displayKEY did not have infrared. It seemed like just a few years later we had to replace those original displayKEYS with the displayKEY (or the dorky clamshell eKEY) with the contact and infrared. At that point beause we continued to use the old gray keyboxes along with some new blue keyboxes... we could not use cellphones and PDAs. We still needed an electronic "key" with contacts to open the old gray keyboxes.
Yesterday I fully expected the people at the keybox exchange to say that my one battered sawed keybox was beyond acceptable but over the years my other gray keyboxes kind of caught up in the scruffy looks department ....
"Your Exchange appointment should have been mailed to you from Supra." according to the CBR's In Contract Magazine. I did get mail telling me where I needed to be and when, but talking to some of my fellow M's (it was alphabetical of course) some said they had not got mail from Supra, and they knew of people who did not know about the exchange.
Sometime this week any Central Ohio listings with the old gray keybox on the door were or will be keyboxless for a couple of hours at least.
The use of the newer blue keyboxes allows members of our board to finally use certain PDA's and cell phones to enter properties. The new boxes of course also can be accessed using a Supra DisplayKey that is updated daily. The modern keyboxes are security for sellers. It amazes me to hear of other real estate markets that still use combination keyboxes. Sometimes vacant property in Central Ohio has an old fashioned combination keybox. In our market members schedule showing appointments with the listing office, there are fines (and worse) for entering a property without permission.
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This post provided by Maureen McCabe of Real Living HER
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I wrote about the impact of the new NAR policy on the Central Ohio market on my other blog, 
"Harley Rouda Jr., chief executive of Real Living Inc., a 15-state brokerage chain based in Columbus, Ohio, said his company already allows its local offices to leave out listings from certain rivals on a case-by-case basis. "We spend a lot of money advertising our Web site to the public, and we have a right to put what we want on our site," Mr. Rouda said. Rivals unhappy with that policy "can spend more money to promote their own Web sites."
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