🔒Portland Realtor takes new spin on open houses

Realtor Tom Landry is showing Portland's potential home buyers more than just interiors. Partnering with a local trolley tour company, Landry says he's trying to sell visitors and locals on not just a home, but a community.

This summer, Benchmark Real Estate, which Landry owns, began a formal partnership with Portland Discovery Land and Sea Tours to offer tours of for-sale properties, but with a cultural twist. So far, Real-Tours has operated about eight Sunday morning tours, combining visits to open houses with explorations of local history, restaurants and businesses. The tours are free, with suggested donations going toward local real estate- and housing-related nonprofits. Landry, a Standish native who's lived in Portland for 20 years, says the effort is a labor of love and not a means to showcase his properties, noting that several of the open houses are not his listings. The following is an edited transcript.

Mainebiz: How did Real-Tours get started?

Tom Landry: It really stems from a closing conversation that I had with friends of mine, Kathy and Bill Frappier. They own Portland Discovery Land and Sea Tours. We were sitting at the closing table throwing around the idea, maybe four or five years ago. We didn't really do anything about it. When Benchmark opened our office this year on Commercial Street — it's only three or four blocks from their office — it seemed like now was the time.

MB: Have the tours generated any leads?

TL: We've had two concrete leads for people looking to relocate from elsewhere. But our mix on the tours is about 50% local people who just want to learn more about their city. [Of those who are in the market for a new home] people are looking to buy a community; they're not buying a home. We're trying to expose them not only to the real estate, but to some of the unique lifestyle amenities that they would have in those communities — from great restaurants to local shops to nonprofits that are doing some wonderful things.

MB: How many have been taking the tours?

TL: We're averaging about 12 people a tour. I think it's just starting to ramp up as we go week-to-week.

MB: What kind of a commitment is this for you?

TL: I'm probably putting in around 10 hours and staff is probably putting in another 10. They're experiential, these tours — it's not just going to stand in line at Standard Baking. We went to Speckled Ax and the owner was there and gave us a lesson on how you cup coffee and how you taste sample coffee. It's a little more work for the staff up front making sure the business owner is comfortable doing that and has something to say, because you have to entertain someone when they show up and not just say, 'Here's a coffee.'

MB: What do you hope to get out of it?

TL: I think traditional people are trying to measure the performance of this in a business sense, and this is going to be tough to measure. I don't know if the local people who attend this are ever going to list with me. [Marketing] real estate is very much a secondary part of this.

I think you should be giving back to your community as a business owner. And being in the good graces of other local businesses is great, too. You should support them, so they support you.

MB: The real estate market seems to be picking back up. Are there trends that you think will make these tours attractive to people?

TL: There's clearly a re-urbanization that's happening now as baby boomers are downsizing, selling out of the suburbs now that the kids have grown and coming back into smaller urban areas with a wonderful quality of life — well, that's Portland. We're trying to show [prospective buyers] those trends and introduce them to what it means to be in these different neighborhoods.