Admit it. Despite warnings of well-meaning friends, you have driven by houses you once owned to see how they look today. It’s like your curiosity about how ex-boyfriends or ex-girlfriends are doing today. Your former home played a significant role in your life at one time. There was a time when the house was your safe place, the place you ‘came home to.’ And now it’s someone else’s safe place. It is natural to be curious.
Regardless of the condition in which you find your former home, at the sight of it, emotions will surface along with memories. Just this week I drove by my childhood home. The tree in the front yard looked much grander, and the house itself looks much smaller than I had remembered. Many years ago, on Saturday mornings my dad would divide up the yard, defining four sections that would be mine and each of my brothers’ responsibility to rid of weeds. I could’ve sworn from my memory that each of us were responsible for half an acre of bark-a-mulched, dandelion-filled parcels. Today it is apparent that the entire lot did not make up a half acre.
I looked fondly toward the kitchen window remembering how the neighbor boy would poke his nose up to the window screen while our family was at the dinner table and join in on our dinner conversation. Across the street the electrical box that we used as home base for hide-and-seek looked much less significant today than it did from behind the neighbors’ arborvitaes where I crouched until I found the nerve to make a run for it in the heat of the game on summer nights long ago.
As I drove away from the house, I felt that bitter sweetness that comes to you when you wish that some things could last forever. Today as a real estate broker, assisting buyers and sellers in their purchase and sale of houses, I have the honor of experiencing firsthand families saying ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ to their homes. While buyers are looking for a house that could be their home and are seeking a space that will become a significant part of their family story, sellers are tasked with detaching themselves from their home as they prepare to walk away from the house that is a part of their family story.
Surprisingly little recognition is given to these significant benchmark moments at the core of every home sale. In fact, many people attempt to deny any emotional element to the home purchase and sale for fear that it will have undue influence on their ability to negotiate and make clear-headed decisions.
I think that the opposite is true. If you do not consciously recognize and acknowledge the significance surrounding letting go of your home- or choosing your new home, your judgment will be clouded and your ability to make decisions will be impaired. Make room for the significant emotions surrounding the transition. By doing so you will begin to separate those strong emotional influences, thereby enabling yourself to make the best business decisions.