An Auckland real estate agent has labelled Yanfei Bao's disappearance as "disturbing".
Erum Ali says the incident has affected how the industry goes about its duties.
Bao, a 44-year-old Christchurch real estate agent, had been door-knocking on the morning of Wednesday, 19 July when she was reported missing.
One week after she was last seen, the police investigation into her disappearance had been upgraded into a homicide probe.
Ali, who handles residential and lifestyle sales with Bayleys Papakura, told 1News that though details of Bao's disappearance remain unclear, the situation is nonetheless haunting.
"We're kind of still in denial, just, y'know, thinking that maybe she might get found," she said.
"It's really hard to understand what's happened, it's just really, very disturbing."
She said that though her team didn't know Bao, it felt as though one of their own had gone missing.
"It feels like it's somebody who you know who's just disappeared, I'm sure it's really hard for the family, because If we can feel it, I'm sure they do too."
For safety purposes, Bayleys has advised real estate agents to go out on business in pairs, including for door-knocking and open homes.
Having never been in a situation such as this before, Ali is unsure of how temporary the new rules will be, or if they will become the standard.
"Work in pairs - that's the instructions we've got, and I think that's the safest way to go about soliciting clients and sales at this time," Ali said.
"This has never happened before, other than the Covid lockdown, where we were given clear instructions to not door-knock and go and meet people, we've never felt that there was any need to worry about this.
"It's just going to be a bit hard to understand whether this should be the norm, because nobody wants to live in fear, and this has clearly caused a lot of fear."
Despite safety concerns, Ali said door-knocking is a must in a real estate agent's line of work.
"It's a really important part of our work, there's no way we can not do door-knocking and expect to get sales," she said.
"And more than that, it's also like meeting your community, talking to people, getting to know [them], it's not something that can be avoided.
"If you say 'oh don't do that for some time' or 'just put it on hold', it's gonna affect the industry in a big way.
"I don't understand any other way, this is an old-fashioned way of doing sale in real estate, but door-knocking [is] the only way to go."
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