Working with a senior citizen who is selling their home can be a joyful, educational experience. It can also be heart rending. The most important thing to remember is to LISTEN to them during the listing appointment and throughout the transaction. Often, senior citizens are lonely and uncertain about the future but won't directly convey those emotions to their REALTOR. If we as real estate professionals really listen; we will hear such things as "I raised my children here", "my husband and I bought this home new", or "I have lived here forty years."
All of those statements and similar revelations are so important! They have much more meaning attached to them, such as "there are so many memories here", "this is a familiar, secure place for me", and "I don't know any other life." We must be sensitive to these feelings of our older clients and respond with compassion, reassurance, and understanding. By doing so we ease their paths into the new lives and homes they have chosen.
