Winnipeg realtors warned about suspicious man

The Winnipeg Realtors Association is warning its members to be on the lookout for a suspicious man who appears to be pretending to be a client.

In two incidents in the past few weeks, a male client's background, phone numbers and references didn't make sense, associationofficials say.

In both cases, the female agents ended contact with the man and nothing further came of the incidents.

However, board member Deb Goodfellow says the association lets their members know immediately when a safety concern arises.

"We do get that, every year or two, there's something suspicious that will come up like that and what will happen is automatically it'sput on to our [internal] website and [sent] out to all our realtors," she said."We take the safety of our members very seriously."

The association has provided self-defence classes to its members in the past.

Realtor Karen Terek says such strategies, combined with instant-communication devices such as cellphones and BlackBerries, help realtors protect themselves in questionable situations.

A female real-estate agent was assaulted last year in Winnipeg while meeting with a client, Goodfellow said, although she was not seriously injured.

In 1979, realtor Irene Pearson was murdered while showing a house in Winnipeg. No one has been arrested in connection with that case.