Our home. For many of us (unless we are like D. J. Trump) our house is our most valuable material asset. Throughout my career helping people buy and sell properties, I’ve witnessed the intense joy, fear, stress, and to be frank, drama involved in the process. It’s understandable, considering the huge, life changing ramifications involved.  I have some philosophies to share and stories to tell that I hope will help you navigate the process with grace.

First, tell yourself, if it is meant to be it will be. This is an important mindset when selling and shopping for a house. There are a lot of houses out there, and just as many buyers. Trust that it’s going to happen when the time is right.


Here’s a true story.  Recently, I was helping some clients of mine who were looking for their second house, and needed to sell their first house to afford the new. Their home went into escrow…great! Except when FEMA declared that the federal agency was shifting their flood plane zones (probably due to Katrina!) and, unbeknownst to my sellers, their home now required an extra flood insurance policy.  The flood policy was tacking on prohibitive monthly insurance fees for the new buyer, now in escrow. The sale required careful and diligent handling of the FEMA personnel, the insurance companies involved, the buyer, and the lender. (By the way, if this happens to you, there’s a way to mitigate the insurance costs by having a surveyor create a certificate of elevation and submitting it to FEMA). We managed to work out the problem and the house did sell, but there was a delay of a few weeks.The owners, with a buyer in escrow for their house, were excited to be shopping for their next dream home, and they fell in love with one in particular. However, because the sale of their current home was delayed, they lost that house to another buyer.  The wife was very upset and cried a little as they surrendered and let the house go to someone else. But, here’s the miracle ending: because they needed to wait, they ended up getting an incredible deal on an even more amazing  house in Malibu with an ocean view that came back on the market at just the right time. My clients did not think they could afford this area and honestly, if this Malibu house had not fallen out of escrow the day prior and the seller not been anxious for a fast sale (She was also in escrow on another house!)  I am not sure my clients would be living  there today. My clients are thrilled that they were delayed, even though at the time, it seemed like the end of the world as we know it.  I like to call this situation “the seemingly bad” event that brings about a better event.


It is easy for me to see the forest through the trees because I have seen these deals play out so many times. Part of my job is to help my clients understand that if one door does not open, there’s another door that will open, and when it does it will be even better.  As my friend Dallas says: “We are always moving from our good to our greater good”!

I think these and other similar philosophies are very powerful and can be applied to everyone’s life or business. I’ve given only one example from my own experience to show you how these concepts are more than just words but methods of acting and thinking that have positive outcomes.