This is an obvious follow-up to "The Cleanout," but also confirmation that real estate is a balancing act. The first blog in this mini-series left me feeling wiped out, not ready for any more drama - ever! This second one, while it happened the exact same day, is the reason I enjoy real estate so much.
My clients were both sellers and buyers. Their walk-through had happened before they moved out, so their buyers saw the house with boxes and things still on the walls. They knew it would all go, and be gone, and that the sellers were doing them a favor of closing sooner than they wanted. The buyers' lock on their rate was running out that day so they had to close or face extension fees. Agents, attorneys and buyers/sellers all agreed and communicated. It was so positive!
The last bit remaining was the walk-through of my buyers-sellers of their new home. The owner had everything cleared out - more people working on behalf of the deal! They cleaned, they boxed, they removed furniture and clothes even the little itty bitty things that can get left behind, and held an estate sale at the same time. The house looked wonderful!
The seller met us at the door, and when the family moved into the kitchen with her she presented them with a watercolor painting of the home that a friend had done for her. "You are the new owners, and you should have this," she said, as I teared up. A lovely moment. Then she left to talk with neighbors while we walked through the house we had seen almost a year ago, and were closing on the next day. No complaints...not perfection, but there really can never be.
After we went outside and found the seller in a small group. She introduced the neighbors clustered around her. The two girls met other children their age, and true to form, everyone was a bit shy. They would ride the bus together come fall.
I left them there chatting and drove away with the top down on the Fiat in the warm sunset light. This is what a walk-through should be, I thought, again tearing up. A passage from one family to another, a moment in time remembered as the beginning of a new era. Sweetness, and above all, kindness.
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