October 2025 - Nuggets - Tour of Property

Back in the day, we used to have Tour of Property on a regular weekly basis. It was quite the event. A literal caravan of cars would head out from our RE/MAX office following a pre-ordained route through Niagara to personally inspect a number of our listings that were new to the market. And often these inspections, sometimes involving 30 or 40 of our agents would spawn an almost immediate sale, when salespeople walking through a house would think, ‘I’ve got just the buyer for this!’ The internet changed all that. Now with a click of a mouse, an agent can not only become aware of any new listing, they can actually walk through it virtually thanks to i-Guide and inter-active video. But in a way something was lost. There’s nothing like physical presence. Being able to walk the floors. Open the cupboards. Touch and feel. We experimented with resuscitating the Tour of Property not long ago for a group of newly licensed agents during our in-house training. Not only was the event well received. It actually produced a sale or two. So, we decided to re-introduce it once again right near the end of summer. The call went out and almost immediately we had a roster of properties to preview. A group of our agents met in the training centre. Discussed the properties they were off to see. Then headed out. These tours, just like our socials are a great opportunity for our salespeople to get together and socialize. And speaking of socializing, the tour ended at the home of our Broker, Wayne Quirk, where thanks to a warm sunny day, we enjoyed a B.B.Q lunch. But socializing, while being an important part of the event, is not the primary function. It’s to increase awareness of properties in inventory and help promote showings and sales. Over the years, that’s always been the goal. Long before internet availability agents would attend at the board office and filter through the listing in-box to see what was new. To be first to show property fresh on the market. The weekly catalogues were ‘gold’ and Tour of Property was critically valuable. Now it’s much easier to stay on top of anything new to the market. Company and corporate websites. Board M.L.S. through PropTX, Realtor.ca. Lots of ways. And both the agents and the consumers make full use of these tools. But the fact is, and as our agents are newly discovering, there’s nothing better than actually being there. And tour of property makes that happen.