Open houses are a great way to share a home with lots of potential buyers at once, but they also mean lots of people coming and going while the house is open. While the agent will walk around and discuss the home with the visitors, they can’t be everywhere at once.

In Lake Forest, Illinois, two open houses reported that a suspicious man introduced himself as a real estate agent and used the open houses to snoop around for a future robbery.

According to the police blotter, an officer responded to a call about a suspicious person visiting a home on Ravine Forest drive. The man introduced himself with a name which was later found to be fake. He made his way to the home’s upstairs and was making quite a bit of noise, presumably searching through the owner’s belongings and making a plan to rob the house at a later time. When confronted by the agent, the man left the home.

The man was seen at another open house just a block away later that day.

While agents can’t be everyone at once, it is important to use best judgement and provide some level of supervision when showing the house to scheduled visitors or in an open house. This time the bad guy didn’t get away with anything, but you never know what may have happened had the agent not been listening for the noises upstairs.

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