Real estate agents, especially agents from those big, brand-name real estate companies, will tell you about what is called an “Agent /Office Tour” or what is sometimes called a “Broker’s Tour”. What this consists of is a tour of your home by real estate agents from the office of the agent you listed with or local buyer’s agents from all offices in your local real estate market.

Sounds great. But, watch out. It’s just a waste of time and just another trick real estate agents use to justify that 4% to 6% listing commission they have charged you.

Agents will tell you of the tremendous value there is to having all these buyer’s agents previewing your home at one time. I have personally taken many agent / office tours when I was working for one of the large brand-name firms during my early years in the business.

Every Thursday we would pile into someone’s car and make the rounds of the new listings that had come on the market. A few agents hated the Thursday tours but most of us loved them. Why? Because we love to eat. Eat? What does eating have to do with getting agents to preview a house? Everything!

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Real estate agents know that agent/office tours are generally ineffective and that only a small percentage of salespeople in any given town will actually go on these tours. Most agents are too busy working with qualified buyers to bother with agent/office tours.

So, to get a better turn out, the agents holding the tours would lure us in with food! Like raccoons heading for the local Frost Bite Falls garbage dump at night, we would descend upon these agent/office tours in search of great grub! No kidding! The better the food that was being served, the better the agent turn out would be. These tours were planned around food as carefully and strategically as a night bombing run on a munitions plant over Germany during World War II. Fortunately the only bombs that were dropped were the tablets of Alka Seltzer we agents took after gorging ourselves on all that food!

We did actually look at some homes once in awhile, but please don’t get your hopes up thinking your home will sell because of an agent/office tour. It won’t.

Bill Brynelsen is a real estate agent in Spring Grove Illinois. His forth coming book "The Truth Behind The For Sale Sign"©. Gives readers valuable insight into the tricks real estate agents will use to get your listing/money. Visit Bill's real estate web site at http://www.mypadd.com/ or email him your real estate questions at info@mypadd.com. You just may save yourself thousands on your next real estate transaction.