Guiding our Clients Home (Court's Version)

Original, unabridged column written for Greater Nashville Realtors®

When I was asked to write a column for Greater Nashville Realtors® Real Deal column, I instantly thought of the idea of guiding versus controlling the real estate process. A few recent transactions really highlighted the distinction between the two for me. One experience served as a positive example of guiding a client to the best decision for them resulting in a contract closing soon, one negative in which a listing agent essentially controlled the transaction right to termination as my buyers grew increasingly uneasy throughout the process. For the past week, I tried to start writing. My ego wanted to have something professional, intelligent, and insightful to say about real estate. I typed up a few lines here and there, I wrote down some notes, I found a quote in a book that felt right. And, yet I still could not sit to write that piece.

Finally, I felt a spark of inspiration and realized that what feels more authentic to share in this moment is a combination of guiding versus controlling the process and this idea of home. I have spent much time reflecting lately on the idea of home. Shocking for a real estate broker, right? Maybe it was the storm and tornado warning a few weeks ago on the anniversary of the 2020 tornado. A tornado that quite literally and figuratively sent many of our lives into a tailspin just weeks before the world shut down from Covid. Honestly, this rumination on “home” is a topic that I have thought about for years with a combination of many factors.

After moving away from family in 2019, it became more apparent to me that home is not always a physical place or structure. Home can be people, it can be a state of being, it can be connection with yourself. Home is also, of course, the physical structure where we fill the walls with pictures and art, memories, laughter, people. Home is a town where we were born or grew up and made friends and learned lessons. Home can be all these things. Following the 2020 tornado, my tiny home in North Nashville honestly did not feel like home. It took years of therapy, self-exploration and work, rearranging my house a number of times, and cleansing to finally feel at ease again in my physical home. During the years it took to make my tiny North Nashville property feel like home again, I was simultaneously finding my way back to my Self, one of those other versions of home. I was strengthening friendships, relationships, and connections and learning that those strong, honest, vulnerable, supportive relationships felt like home too.

As Realtors®, people trust us with the process of helping them find their physical homes. Buying a home can be one of the most stressful processes, one of the biggest purchases that many people will make in their life. Realtors® are the experts and know the ins and outs of real estate, but at the end of the day, if we are controlling the process from a place of our own ego, we are doing our clients a disservice. A cornerstone of Realtors® role is to help clients in a manner that meets the client’s individual preferences and expectations. For some, that means they want all the data, all the stats, all the numbers. For others it’s a feeling, it’s the vibe in a certain home, a layout that feels energetically right to them. Maybe it’s a feeling they can’t describe. Some clients want to text, others expect a phone call. Some have bought and sold so many houses, they want to sign digitally on the dotted line, others need a full walk through of all documentation throughout the process. Whatever the process looks like for each individual client, it is our job as Realtors® to figure out how we can make the process of finding their physical home feel like home too.

I don’t think any of us can deny that trying to guide our clients through the past few years was intense. It was hard to tailor the process to the individual with everything moving at such a frenetic pace. Control probably felt necessary to help our clients succeed. Not to mention, we’ve all been in scenarios where the client took control of the process. But, as we move into a more manageable flow of real estate, I want to encourage everyone to slow down a bit. Connect a little deeper with your clients. Make sure we are guiding clients in their best interest, not robotically controlling the process and not letting them take full control either. In doing so, we will still help people find their way to a new home. One with walls, windows, and doors. A home to fill with all of their knickknacks and things, people and memories. But, don’t forget home is also a state of being. A state of being calm, peaceful, at ease where we are with whomever we are with. So guide the process to be one that feel like home.

💗 Court