#BeTheSherpa: What Lynn Johnson hid from her clients

Much of a real estate transaction is need-to-know. And buyers often need to know everything.

Agent Lynn Johnson was working with a couple who were relocating from the mountains of Asheville, NC to the Triangle area.  She guided them diligently through a search for a home that would fit their needs and wants. They finally found the right property for the right price. So they went under contract.

“Then I got a call that rocked my world,” Lynn Johnson recalled. “The listing agent told me the sellers wanted out of the contract.”

It was a severe case of cold feet in a very hot market. The sellers wanted to sit on their property in hopes of watching the value increase. And their agent was very green. He asked Lynn for advice.

“I basically told him to find them a home that would ‘wow’ them so much that they wouldn’t even consider not purchasing that home.” Then Lynn Johnson put a different power into play: the power of prayer.

“Told him that I would pray about the situation.I would  pray for him to find the right words when speaking with the sellers. I would pray for the sellers understanding. And finally, I would pray that I didn’t have a heart attack in the process waiting for confirmation that they were indeed going to stay in this deal.”

It worked.

“At 8am the next morning, I got a call that the contract was back on and the sellers had found a new house!”

Lynn Johnson made a deliberate choice to shield her buyers from all of this.

“My buyers were such kind people, and if they knew the sellers felt this way, they would have carried so much guilt,” she said. “I also knew how much they adored the home and how devastated they would have been to lose it.”

Thankfully, there were smiles all around at the closing. And it wasn’t until well after the deal was done that Lynn confessed. They were extremely relieved that she had not shared the situation with them at the time. And they thanked her for doing so much more than simply helping with documents, inspections, and more.

“Sometimes being an agent is like a magician. It’s the things you don’t see that lead you to believe!”