No More Free Lunch -- Really

It's not exactly true that "there's no free lunch"; if you're a Realtor, you could almost always count on at least a few homes on the Tuesday Broker tour having some sort of spread.

Well, not today, and very little lately, generally -- not even at upper bracket properties where putting out a lunch is most common.

The explanation?

I'd guess mostly the economy: listings are taking longer to sell, which means Realtor marketing budgets have to stretch further.

But it's also the case that there's not much connection between catering a broker open and selling the house (at least in my experience).