I have an out-of-state senior client who wants to purchase a home in Indiana. We've been talking for months because this isn't simply a move from one house to another.
She wants to create a home where she and her 82-year-old father can live under one roof during his remaining years, in the Indiana town where he grew up.
That's a big undertaking.
There are schedules to coordinate, an out-of-state move to plan, finances and properties to consider, and two people's lives to bring together. So we haven't rushed it. We talk. We look at possibilities. We make plans. And then life happens and those plans adjust.
A couple of months ago, life changed considerably when she suffered a stroke.
Since then, I've called her every few weeks to see how she's doing. Her speech is a little slower now, but she is still incredibly sweet, and the plan to eventually make the move to Indiana remains.
Then, last night, my phone rang at 10:30 PM.
It was her.
Typically, I don't answer client calls that late. Boundaries matter in this business. But given her recent health issues and knowing her elderly father was also part of this journey, I answered because my first thought wasn't real estate.
I wanted to make sure they were okay.
She seemed a little confused. Somehow she thought it was earlier than it actually was, and for a moment neither of us was entirely sure what she had originally called me about.
And then our conversation took a turn I certainly didn't learn about in real estate school.
We started playing trivia.
There I was, late at night, on the phone with a client hundreds of miles away, answering questions and laughing with her.
No houses.
No contracts.
No commission discussion.
Just two people playing trivia over the phone.
And I realized afterward that this little moment says more about the kind of real estate career I want than almost any closing photograph ever could.
Real estate involves enormous life transitions. Marriage. Divorce. Babies. Death. Aging parents. Illness. New jobs. Retirement. Financial changes. Fresh starts.
The house is often simply the physical structure sitting in the middle of a much bigger human story.
My job with this client may eventually be to find the right Indiana home, negotiate the purchase and get her successfully to the closing table.
But that wasn't my job at 10:30 that night.
That night, my job was simply to answer the phone.
And apparently, know a little trivia.
That's real estate too.