Clients In Crisis

Sitting next to my client at the closing of her house, out the corner of my eye I saw something fall from her face . . . or her blonde hair(?) onto the paper before her. Puzzled, turned to look closer and found her frozen, pen in hand, face bent to the legal document when another . . . something fell to the paper. 

 

They were tears.

 

I gripped her arm and leaned close, “Stacy, stand up and let’s go into the hallway.” The buyers across the table hardly noticed. In the hall I gave her a brief hug then led her to an empty office and sat her down with a box of tissues. Back in the closing I explained that I’d shuttle documents to her down the hall, saying only, “This is a difficult moment. She needs privacy.”

 

The house sale was the final act of a failed marriage, an exclamation point on a dream that died. But Stacy, a good friend, was tough as nails. She had that good cry and got on with her life.

 

They don’t teach you about this in real estate licensing courses–that real estate isn’t about houses, but about people. I’m thankful for all the educational psychology in my undergrad degree. As a Realtor, I’m often representing people in their brightest, most hopeful moments, when a new house is a realized dream, and also, sadly, in their most broken moments, after death, or amid divorce or bankruptcy.

 

In another emotional moment, I carefully stepped away.

 

A county judge handed me the listing of a home owned by a divorcing couple who couldn’t agree on anything. The husband had possession of the house and though he wasn’t living there he’d changed the locks and prevented the wife access. When I took possession and put my sign in the yard, the wife called and asked if I’d let her into the house to collect some belongings. I asked the judge and he agreed. 

 

She arrived with her father. While she gathered clothing in the master bedroom, her father boxed dishes in the kitchen. I busied myself doing what I do with uninhabited houses; occasionally run water in sinks and tubs to prevent sewer gas from back-drafting into the house.

 

I finally made it to the master bath and after turning off the water, heard guttural sobs. Stepped out to find the wife, a woman I barely knew, sitting on the edge of the bed, face in her hands, crying. The impulse is to sit close, put an arm around her shoulders and offer consolation. But no. I’m a man in a bedroom with a women I don’t know who’s overcome with emotion. I hurried to the kitchen and told her father, “Your daughter needs you upstairs.”

 

Sometimes clients’ needs are more nuanced. At a listing appointment, a completely lucid 75-year-old retired businessman told me bluntly, “I’ve been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.” He handed me an attorney’s business card. “My attorney must approve everything I sign in advance, so copy him on every communication.” I did as he said, and the transaction worked wonderfully.

 

That is, until I discovered six weeks after the closing he’d never paid the electrician I hired on his behalf to make repairs after the home inspection. I called to ask that he pay the bill. At first confused, this otherwise gentle man flew into a rage, accusing me of trying to cheat him. I emailed the bill, the inspection chain of documents, and our emails about the needed electrical work to him and his attorney, showing it hadn’t been paid though he’d agreed to pay it. He could not be moved.

 

The electrician had served me and my clients well over the years. So I personally paid the $750 bill out of respect for the contractor and our long business relationship.

 

The seller’s attorney called with sympathy saying he couldn’t reimburse me without his client’s approval, but promised to find a way to make things right someday. Nine months later, after I’d long-since licked my wounds and forgotten about it, a check arrived in the mail from that attorney for $750. 

 

The lesson: Life is hard and there are good people in it. 

 

Some 7 years ago, another aging client was selling a house she’d owned 35 years, bought when she was a single mom. Her 2^nd husband attended our meetings but respectfully deferred to her on all matters of the sale. The wife and I had a conversation in the driveway about needed mulching a week before we listed. We agreed I’d find a landscaper to do it. Six hours later I called her with a landscaper’s name. She had no idea what I was talking about. No memory of the conversation of six hours earlier. The same sort of thing happened again in the following week. I’m not a mental health professional, but I’ve seen the early signs of dementia before.

 

I called the husband and asked him to participate in our decision making, but he insisted this was her house and she would make all decisions. 

 

And so I proceeded suspecting my client was in the early stages of undiagnosed dementia, whose husband was apparently in denial. From that moment on I emailed and texted as much as possible and followed phone calls with a summary email starting, “To confirm our phone call of earlier today . . .” I wanted digital proof to confirm everything that happened. We sold and closed the house easily. I enjoyed the couple so much, but sadly, we lost contact in the years after that sale.

 

Just this past winter that seller’s son called to share that his mother had died after a long battle with dementia and thanked me for being good to her.

 

Again, my real estate career reminds me that my profession is more about people than it is about houses.