Happily Ever After
Most weeks, I try to share an insight or a tip I recently came across or an epiphany I had that I believe might help you in your business. This week’s edition is about something I already knew (and I would hope you did, too), but I believe it’s worth mentioning again.
A few weeks back, I was attending one of my closings with a very nice married couple (I attend all my closings, not just the ones with nice married couples) when we got through about half the mile-high stack of paperwork for the buyers to sign when the husband asked if he could take a quick break to use the restroom. Upon his return, he picked up his pen to continue with the signing, and just as the escrow officer was about to hand him and his wife the next document to sign, he apologized for the break and went on to explain that he had gone to the bathroom to compose himself.
He had become overcome with emotion and wept tears of joy because this is the first house he and his wife of 30 years had been able to purchase. A little over a year ago, they quit their jobs in California without any prospect of jobs here in Arizona, packed up everything they owned into a U-Haul truck, and made the move. “We lived in California for almost 30 years, and we could never afford to buy a house,” he explained, “but in just fourteen months of living here, and we’re moving into a house WE OWN!” Before the escrow officer and I started to get misty eyed, the wife hit us with another shot right in the feels.
About twelve years ago, they had gone to a new development to look at houses, and she had fallen in love with one design that had a turret like one found on a castle. She told her husband that when they are able to buy their first house, she wanted it to look like a castle. Fast forward to 2018: when they were working with their agent to find them a home here in Arizona, they never mentioned this to him as one of the criteria for their ideal home. They had made a full-price offer on one house that had been on the market for about four months, but the seller was . . . strange, to say the least, and ultimately refused their offer. A few days after resuming their search, their agent called and told them he found a house that he thought they would really like. When they pulled up to the property to meet with the agent, the house had a turret. It was her castle!
There are many reasons we all got into the real estate/mortgage business, but they all have a common thread: money. There’s nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all. Unless you’re independently wealthy because you bought Apple stock back in 1985 or you have an enormous trust fund, you have to have a means to get money to pay your bills and support yourself. That’s a cold, hard fact.
However, if money is the ONLY reason you began and remain in the real estate world, that can only sustain you for so long. It’s experiences like the one I just shared that give meaning to the reason we take phone calls at 11:45 pm on a Thursday and drive all over creation to get documents signed. Of course, the paycheck is a means to an end, but unless you enjoy the journey, it’s not going to be a very happy ending.
