The Art of Real Estate: Listening and Experience

This is my view.

There must be as many perceptions as there are agents and brokers, licensees who made it and those who missed and tried again. It is not for everyone and given the clamor in the world, one might think that real estate as a moving piece, a puzzle, an end goal for either home or money or both is a string in our DNA and maybe it is. Because like the art itself, everything, every piece is subject to shift and change and disappear altogether. Yes, it is a people business and like a clock or a watch or a metronome or an hour glass the keepers and tellers of time are all different. Except the time they tell a different tale to the artist or the model, the paint or the brush, the canvas or the clay.
Like Alice in Wonderland or Dorothy in The Land of Oz or Kansas, Pinocchio  and Gepetto, each transaction is different even if they all or some seem alike, there will be pieces, even a minute, a second that are different. Each is unique.

The story starts with a person and a want or need. I am a broker in residential real estate. I am a broker in residential real estate and I work with people looking/needing/wanting to buy or sell residential property. The clock, of course, has started long before this joining of people, the one who should know the steps and the person who wants to travel that path. I like to think there is a ‘getting to know you’ part. I want to know “why”, what is important? Is it time or money? Why? And I listen. And listen more. And each time I learn more than what they are telling me. This person, this family who is entrusting me to be their captain. And I am knowing that they in fact are. My job is to guide, to listen, to observe, to make sure we move together and check, recheck every step. My job is to look for problems in every step we take or might take or have taken.
So we start with two or three people and then each layer, more come. I think of  the ensemble: the mortgage broker, the appraiser, the underwriter, the sellers of homes we might see, the other agents directly or indirectly, the inspectors, the surveyors, the repair people, the painters, the lawyers and para-legals, the showing service, our MLS staffers, the printers, the sign people, and more. And each has process. Each has documentation, sign and seal, read and absorb, act and wait, wait and listen, all step together. One. That this world moves and can move well or fall apart slowly or quickly depends largely on the broker. The broker has to know where the glitch might be and then know how to catch it or fix it, to attend a problem and with professionalism. It is not a gotcha’ moment.

What it is I believe is the moment we see that the whole story is about power and control on every level. And I believe that is where the experience begins for the broker. When to listen, how that feels, when to listen, and slowly move through the process mending and smoothing and yes, sometimes very quickly, to catch a falling plate. It is the experience that comes, the doing and undoing, the feeling, the catch as you walk across a floor, smell a familiar smell, see the angle of a crack. We are not experts in other fields but we are experienced in our world, with our paints or mallet or pen as the artist, the broker.

Lynnsy Logue, The Real Estate Lady ®