Surrey RCMP investigating after Realtor sexually assaulted during open house

Mounties are investigating after a real estate agent was sexually assaulted in North Surrey just after 4 p.m. PT on Saturday afternoon. 

Police say the female agent was conducting an open house when she was attacked.

"She managed to fight him off and he fled," said Sgt. Alanna Dunlop with Surrey RCMP. "We conducted an investigation and searched the area very thoroughly but could not locate this male."

Police say the victim didn't know the alleged attacker and wasn't injured in the incident. 

Officers describe the suspect as a South Asian male in his late 20s to mid 40s who spoke with an accent and is between five foot eight and five foot ten inches tall with brown eyes and a dark well-groomed beard. He was wearing dark coloured pants and a light coloured shirt with a white turban. 

The investigation is ongoing and police are appealing for anyone with information to come forward. 

In October, 2007 another female real estate agent was showing a property in Surrey to two men she thought were prospective buyers but instead, was tied up and robbed before she was able to free herself and run to a nearby home for help.

Meanwhile in 2008, Lindsay Buziak, died from multiple stab wounds in a home she was showing in the upscale Victoria neighbourhood of Gordon Head. Her murder remains unsolved, while at the time the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board made a computer-based alert system available to its agents in a bid to improve on-the-job safety.

• Police say 911 call a clue to Victoria real estate agent's death
• Alert system aims to improve job safety for real estate agents
• Female real estate agents in Brampton warned of suspicious person

The BC Real Estate Association uses cases like these to emphasize the need for Realtors — male and female — to be extra careful when showing homes.

A guide on its website recommends planning escape routes and jotting down licence plate numbers.

Surrey Realtor Sharon Tucker has been selling homes for 30 years and while she's never had a bad open house experience, she always plays it safe.

"I really believe that you should have someone with you all the time," she said.

"The buddy system is something that I've always done over the years. So I tell someone, a specific someone, where I'm going to be for what time and when I'll be finished. That person either contacts me or I contact them at the end of the open house to make sure that I am safe at the end of the open house."

with files from Anita Bathe