I am often taken by the camaraderie, human connection, and goodwill that moves the business I’m in. Yes, the Boston area real estate market is intensely competitive and increasingly expensive. But I’m struck by the heart that’s involved—between agents as well as between buyers and sellers. The stories in my daily dealings are numerous.
Take the Arlington seller who’s acting as power of attorney for his mom, now in a nursing home. He and his brother are selling their unrenovated childhood home, and he passes along the following note from their mom after choosing my clients—a young lesbian couple—as their buyers:
“The letter from [your buyers] is the most touching I have ever seen…. Carl and Ron grew up in this house, love it, and that made them very happy. Time for the house to have a new family.”
Love moves in.
I see compassion for life changes when one of my buyer couples and their sellers bond over art, food, and the treehouse the seller just built. While that seller’s young family’s moving on to a bigger home out in the country, my semi-retired buyers are gleeful that they get to up-size from a Brookline apartment to a Roslindale house where their grandkids can sleep over and play under tree cover.
Love gets to grow.
I witness heart and respect when a scrappy Dorchester developer geeks out, huddling to show my buyers how to set up the tech features he’s built in, from the app-controlled security camera to the wireless speaker system. They’ve exchanged cell phone numbers to continue the conversation.
I call that love.
And when a typically aloof top agent in Jamaica Plain makes a point of calling me to say that he’s kicking back in his chair a bit because he gets to accept another offer from me, I can hear the width of his smile as he tells me I’ve made his day.
That’s love.
In what can be a high-stakes and stressful experience on either end of the transaction, so often I experience people coming together in touching ways.
It’s love that moves this thing. And I see that my role is to spark that connection, and sustain it.
