Tuesday is the traditional day for real estate office meetings and then Broker Tour. What exactly is Broker Tour? Well, it’s essentially an open house for real estate agents. When homes are newly listed they’ll typically have an open house so agents can get a preview look. If they have buyers interested in that type of home, they can give them more information. Broker Tour in the Hartford area traditionally happens on Tuesdays between 11:00am-2:00pm. If you’ve ever seen an Open House sign on a street corner on a Tuesday morning, that’s probably why. Some “real people” even show up to see a house during Broker Tour and that’s perfectly fine to do.
Agents sometimes tour together. You’ll often see 2 or 3 agents driving around and visiting the properties. They’re saving gas and probably chatting about the business. If our schedules are open, Kyle and I typically tour together. This has resulted in some interesting exchanges.
You see, the average age of a real estate agent is 52 years old. We’re a lot younger than that and it’s not that common for men and women to tour together (usually it is groups of women touring together) so sometimes if people are unfamiliar with us they think we are buyers crashing Broker Tour.
A few weeks ago we were walking into a home and a brand new agent that was also touring the home asked if she could help us. She thought we were buyers. Her manager was touring with her and quickly introduced us. That was the first time I consciously realized that some agents think we are buyers.
This week we pulled up to a new listing that’s in a popular neighborhood in West Hartford. As we arrived there was a young couple crossing the street in front of our car. The woman of the couple peered in and gave a dirty look. My immediate thought was “Huh? What did we do?” I hadn’t seen these folks before, so I was pretty sure I hadn’t done anything to offend them. “Hey Kyle, do you know them? Have you wronged them in some way? We just got a dirty look.” Nope, Kyle claimed he had not knowingly offended them either.
As I was getting out of the car it dawned on me. They thought we were buyers. They were meeting their agent at the house to take an early look and thought we were also going to be touring it too. We could be competing with them for the house! When I realized this, I laughed. “Hey Kyle, I figured it out, they think we’re buyers and we want the house too.”
Potentially we could have had some fun psyching them out (“We love the house! We’re putting in an offer!”), but their agent ruined it for us and said “Hi Kyle, hi Amy.” We were found out, we were agents. No fun was had with those folks, but now we’ll be ready when the opportunity presents itself again… 🙂
HI Bergs,
Your last name is too long to type.
I’ve got 2 Elvis sunglasses w/attached sideburns that you could borrow when you Broker tour. That way, no actual real estate agent would acknowledge the Bergs in such a ludicrous disguise, not to mention the scorn and ridicule from all the other 50yo agents who think you are buyers taking one too many puffs from the hookah.
Are you game?
NicK
Usually when people give me dirty looks (not that often) it happens so fast that I’m not quick enough to shoot one right back – which probably isn’t mature – but sure sounds fun. 15 years ago I flashed a dirty look to some guy making tons of noise outside I restaurant I was eating at in Boston with friends and was pretty shocked when he started banging on the window so hard I thought it was going to bust, and started screaming at me. I was like – Oops – that didn’t work as planned. But I guess I flashed a pretty good “dirty look” that day to get that reaction.
I read in the paper some big owner of a bunch of properties in hartford put them all in bankruptcy in July and a bank owns them now – but will manage them with some real estate management firm in East Hartford- so I guess it won’t have much impact.
Nick- We feel your pain on our last name. Several friends refer to us as “The Bergqui” which seems to be a bit easier. Correct pronunciation on that is Ber-kwai. As for Elvis disguises, I agree that would be pretty ridiculous, but it’s always okay to poke a little fun at oneself, ala the Margaret Wilcox mustache billboards you can find in Glastonbury. 🙂
Michael- Kyle and I also noticed that flurry of $0 Hartford transaction sales in the Courant last Friday and wondered what the heck happened. As the article yesterday explained it, I think the properties are spread out enough and will be handled in a manner so as it won’t have a huge impact. There were quite a few of them today too, but from several different owners.