Top San Francisco Realtor Perspectives: I Miss Us (Realtors)

by Cynthia Cummins

Cynthia is owner and founder of Kindred SF Homes and a top San Francisco Realtor. Check out RealEstateTherapy.org for refreshing reflections on the meaning of home and for more “best real estate advice” (since 2013).

Reading time: 2 minutes

If you want something done right, sensibly and with a high level of accountability, call a Realtor. They are amazing human beings!

(Pause for a small proviso: Every now and then there’s a proverbial bad apple – an agent who doesn’t listen, hustles you up, shoehorns you into a home that doesn’t suit you, or puts less than 100% into selling your house for top dollar. But agents like that are scarcer than actual bad apples.)

The best Realtors are smart, adept, flexible, personable, empathic, giving and truthful. They have hidden (or not so hidden) talents and passions: acting, singing, marathon running, bay swimming, poetry writing, pie baking, whiskey tasting or dog walking. They volunteer their time and treasure to a multitude of good causes. They love their families.

Plenty of them are fighting tough personal battles. They’re facing the challenges (ordinary and extraordinary) that arise or have arisen all around the globe and throughout time. They’re living with a medical diagnosis, caring for aging relatives, raising young human beings, trying to earn a living, looking for meaning.

And although each of us is ostensibly competing with every other agent in town, there is so much friendliness, helpfulness and kindness among peers. My life and my career are immeasurably enriched as a result. But in the midst of this pandemic, I feel a great loss. I miss my colleagues!

We see each other on Zoom and there are phone calls and emails, but there’s no more bumping into each other on Tuesday brokers tour or showing somebody’s listing and having a chance to shoot the proverbial shit. Our very social business has become strangely isolating.

I yearn for connection. It’s a treat just to hear another agent’s voice. Even someone who I once had a strained transaction with. Even someone who I once judged because their trademark move was double-parking their distinctive luxury automobile all over town. Even someone I envy because they appear to work less and make more money than I do. Even someone who never seems to remember who the hell I am.

None of that matters anymore. I find I have renewed love for all my peers. Past transgressions, petty jealousies, warts and all.

In fact, I’m especially grateful for the warts on display. We’re all having to show up looking a lot more REAL than we did before. We have grey hairs and unshaped eyebrows. We’ve put on a few pounds and our attire isn’t so put together. We have scraggly necks and unmanicured fingernails. We’re real people. Real Realtors. And I love us!

Photo Credit: Toa Heftiba

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