Where do you find the best price for combo boxes on the net?

eBay.

Lowes and Home Depot have them as well. You can also get them really cheap from agents who are getting out of the business.

I had checked ebay and could not find any good deals... BuyLockboxes.com has the 4 digit combos w/ plastic sleeves for $9.49 if you buy 20 after shipping it comes to about $10.50 each ($210 total for 20).. is that a bad deal?

It's a bad deal if your E&O insurance does not cover you, because the lock box number has been compromised and you are liable.

You can't reset the combo to a new number?

Our boards, who make money from selling the RISCO or SUPRA boxes, has everyone believing that these combo boxes are easy to get into. Ok folks think about it. You want to break into a house, are you going to stand at the front door or hose bib in the garden and try everything possible to get into the box to get the key? NO you are going to go around back and break a window like a respectable and quick thief. LOL

I have been in the business almost 10 years and have never heard of a box being tampered with.

True. LOL

Though we don't have to buy our lockboxes. Our association buys them for us and loans them to each office according to how many listings they have. Which I think is pretty nice.

We were warned earlier this year though that there were so many listings on the market and finances were down that we may be charged if we need more lockboxes in the future. Fortunately that hasn't happened yet.

Wow that's awesome that your board is providing the boxes. Here we use the SUPRA boxes and they are very expensive. I think they are a little over $100 each. Imagine being an REO agent and having 100 listings - that's quite an investment as opposed to a $20 box from Lowes. So we see a lot of the combo boxes here.

Yes, I realize we are blessed. Our association is really pretty decent...I can't complain too much.

You must not do business near Detroit. I have had more lock boxes stolen and broken into than I can even count. I can break into a bargain lockbox (and most other cheap boxes) in 10 seconds. Remove with a small bolt cutter, and one hit in the right spot with a hammer and they usually pop open. Sometimes it takes 2-3. I have had to remove my fair share of boxes from relisted properties when they agent doesn't get their box off. I have also had to do this on jammed boxes that wont open. It's a good stress reliever.

Really - no lockbox is impenetrable.

And I fully agree with the above - criminals will just break a window to get in.

$10.95 for a combo lockbox IS a good deal because I did ALOT of looking for the best price. Even though I only wanted 10 combo lockboxes, with the low price I obtained them for, I got 20 for nearly the price of 10, so I'm not complaining.

Lock box combinations usually don't change during the listing period. When house shopping years ago, our agent would give us the combo to see the house when she could not make it. So much for combo security.

I like MFS Supply

But my question was...can you change the combo any time you want?

Yes all the combo boxes allow you to manually change the combo at any time. I have found that most agents use the same combo for all their listings. Probably to make it easier to give out when agents call to show. I now know when I see "x" agent that I don't even have to call if the house is vacant - I already know the combo. So changing the combos frequently is important if you want to track your showings.

Yes, that would make it easy I suppose...

Yes, even the cheap ones can be changed any time you want.

I had that very thing happen this past week. I was taking a nap so I had turned my phone off. An agent left a message wanting a combo code. I called him back about 30 minutes later and he had figured it out - it was just a matter of the last digit that he had to fiddle with. I promptly took another lockbox with a different code to that house. Now, all new listings will have different codes. I want to know which agents have been in the properties. Another agent who previously had been there called me the same day of the change saying, "The lockbox code isn't working, HELP!"

Yes, you can change the codes - contact your supplier or the manufacturer.