The weight of selling the family home.

I have worked with many clients over the years who have had to sell a family home that may have been the home they grew up in or one that has been in the family for generations. Always it seemed to be a very tough emotional process for them and today I found out just how tough.

I wrote some time back about coming to a decision to sell a vacation home that has been in our family since 1958 and how difficult it was for my brother. For various reasons it just was not used enough and had become a financial negative. So today was closing and I'm glad to say all went well . What I didn't count on were all the memories that flooded back when I took that last walk on the beach . I had literally come of age on this little stretch of sand in New Jersey and I wound up teering up quite a bit thinking about all the times spent as a boy like learning to swim with my dad, getting lost with my cousin, my first summer girlfriend, fireworks, and surfing for hours on end. I had to choke back the tears a few times when I talked about growing up there with the buyers and the buyers agent. They say you can never go back but it did make me think of how precious all those little moments we have really are, the good and the bad ones.

I know the next time I have a client that is struggling with this process I may know how they feel and what they are going through. Part of our jobs as Realtors is to guide and advise but also to empathize and be sensitive to the weight these decisions really have. Our careers take us into some of the most personal areas of peoples lives and I can only hope that I can honor their process and support them through it. As some say " a chapter is closed and so another begins" , I say thanks Mom & Dad for giving me such a special gift and thank you Ocean Beach for 45 years together.