Property Point

In my previous life working as a journalist, the days that had an impact and resonated most were those when there had been a tragedy when emotions were raw and real.

I covered Melbourne’s Queen Street massacre, when a deranged Frank Vitkovic entered the post office and shot and killed nine people.

Another day I sat in the lounge room of a father whose young police officer son had been executed as he sat in a police car with another constable while they were parked in an inner suburban street.

There is only pain and devastation and even though you have a job to do you can’t help but deeply feel the anguish of the people you speak to in those situations. You connect at a human level.

I went into real estate about 11 years ago and it is certainly a different gig … but the connection with humanity is, in many ways, equally as strong.

When you are selling someone’s house it is a big deal, an important responsibility. Naturally you make sure you have a strategy to get the best price and hope that the seller takes your advice in terms of preparing the property.

But the truth is that selling real estate is only partly about houses, bricks and mortar. It’s mainly about people.

Part of it is being able to connect with buyers and smooth the way to them buying a property.

One of the highlights of selling real estate is sharing the excitement of someone who has bought a property they love.  But often there is more to it, the effort and sacrifice to get to the point of being able to buy has sometimes been monumental and the result has been life-changing. You get to feel that.

And working for sellers often takes things to another level. They have trusted you to give advice, market the property, deal with buyers, get the best price.

The decision to sell often comes with significant emotional factors. There’s the emotion of having raised a family in the property. Maybe it was the house owned by someone’s late parents, a place where the seller grew up. Perhaps there are health or financial reasons for selling, something that has been forced on the vendor.

Some years ago, during an economic downturn, I sat in the lounge room of a burly, hard-working bloke who was thinking about selling because he was worried about losing his job, losing his house and letting down his wife and kids.

He was not a touchy-feely-sensitive sort of bloke but he was in tears, telling me how worried he was about losing everything and the impact that would have on his family.

Even though I was just a real estate agent, the feelings were raw, the connection was real and I knew we were talking about a lot more than me selling a parcel of land with a house on it.

When selling real estate you are connecting with people, helping them get the best result and getting an understanding of what matters to them.

We sold the big burly bloke’s house, he put the money away for a few years, made sure his job was secure when the economy picked up and he bought another house a few years later. Job done and connection made.

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