With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, many successful real estate agents across the country will be doing what they do every February: dropping off chocolates, flowers, handwritten cards, and in a few ambitious cases, cherry pies, on their clients’ doorsteps.
And weirdly… it works.
Not because chocolate makes people sell their house.
Not because cherry pie unlocks listing inventory.
But because Valentine’s Day taps into something much older than real estate.
Long before humans had open houses, CRM systems, or market reports, we had … grooming.
Anthropologist Robin Dunbar argued that primates use physical grooming to build trust, reinforce social bonds, and maintain group cohesion. It wasn’t hygienic. It was social. Grooming said: I see you. You matter. You’re part of my circle.
The problem, Dunbar noted, is that grooming doesn’t scale. You can only pick fleas, lice and ticks out of so many friends’ backs in a day before either your calendar fills up or your arms fall off. (despite how delicious parasites may be)
So humans evolved something better.
In Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language, Dunbar proposed that language itself emerged as a form of social grooming, a way to maintain relationships at scale through shared information, storytelling, and gossip. Instead of touching each other’s fur, we exchanged insight and context.
(Dunbar, Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language, 1996; Wikipedia summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grooming,_Gossip_and_the_Evolution_of_Language)
In other words, we built relationships by exchanging useful information.
Same as monkeys, But with better tools.
Evolution
Now fast-forward about 50,000 years.
Every February, agents hand out chocolates and flowers. In October, Pumpkins, in November, it’s pumpkin pies. Sometimes it’s branded. Sometimes it’s homemade, other times it’s from Costco.
And it works for the same reason grooming worked for monkeys.
Psychologists call it the norm of reciprocity, the deeply wired human instinct to return favors when someone gives us something of value. When people receive an unexpected gift or helpful gesture, they feel a subtle internal pressure to give something back later, even if nothing was asked for in the moment.
(Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion; summary: https://www.simplypsychology.org/reciprocity-principle.html)
It’s not logical. It’s not transactional. It’s a pure social instinct. Your inner monkey is keeping score.
Here’s where agents quietly get this wrong.
Just about every agent says, “We love referrals.”
They say it all year. They print it on signs, magnets, and business cards.
They even carve it into bus stop benches.
They ask for them… without giving anything first.
“Do you know anyone who wants to sell?”
“Just checking in.”
“I’d really appreciate your referrals this year.”
That’s not relationship building, that’s social cold calling, and it’s just noise.
It violates the oldest rule in human trust formation: don’t ask for favors before you deposit value.
That’s why Valentine’s Day gestures work.
They aren’t salesy, transactional or asking for anything. They’re just small trust deposits.
Which is also why value-first outreach works when everything else doesn’t.
When someone shares relevant, individualized housing information like changes in home value, equity growth, neighborhood pricing trends, it doesn’t feel like marketing.
It feels like: “Huh. This person is paying attention to me.” Kind of like the small hit of dopamine you get from a like on your Facebook post. That’s grooming in Dunbar’s sense. That’s a trust deposit. Different wrappers. Same brain.
We’ve found that when people reply with questions, they aren’t raising their hand for a sales pitch. They’re reciprocating. They’re continuing the social exchange.
Still monkeys. Still grooming.
Hopefully, just with fewer fleas and more spreadsheets.
Dunbar’s insight came from observing monkeys, but it was really about scale. Humans needed a way to maintain thousands of social connections without physical proximity or constant interaction. Language solved that.
Today, data and useful information serve a similar purpose.
They let you stay relevant, helpful, and trusted across far more relationships than your memory or calendar ever could. Just by giving first.
In my experience, most people don’t engage because they’re actually ready to buy or sell at that moment.
They engage because they were seen, helped, and given something of value.
That’s not marketing, that’s anthropology.
We’re still the same social animals we were 50,000 years ago.
We’ve just swapped grooming for cherry pie, chocolate hearts, and personalized insight.
And the rule hasn’t changed:
If you scratch my back,
I’ll scratch yours.
Let me know your tip to deposit trust with prospects in the comments, and please send pie.
Dunbar, R. I. M. (1996). Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language. Harvard University Press.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grooming,_Gossip_and_the_Evolution_of_Language
Cialdini, R. (2006). Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.
Reciprocity principle summary:
https://www.simplypsychology.org/reciprocity-principle.html
Chris Drayer is the co-founder and CEO of Revaluate.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of HousingWire’s editorial department and its owners. To contact the editor responsible for this piece: [email protected].
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