This is my second to last column in the Dominion Post prior to passing this duty and terrific opportunity to my successor, Aaron Marko, who will serve as the 2025 MBOR President. I’ll say a little more about Aaron, someone who made this Dominion Post opportunity possible and maybe a couple of others in my last column next week. Since I’m wrapping up, I’m trying to focus on topics outside of Real Estate tips and advice, although if you’re a regular reader, you’ll know I did indeed present many concepts that can serve as tools which you can add to your Real Estate toolbox.
This is Christmas week and of course we have some in our area who celebrate Hannukah. As I said in a recent radio segment, despite many varying faiths in our society, most of us are kinder and nicer this time of year. This time of year, does for the most part, bring out the good in people. Again, if you’re a regular reader, you might recall one of my predecessors, Stephanie Lemley, who concluded many of her columns with “Remember to do good things”.
To expand upon that concept, I wrote in several of my columns this year, that although Realtors are technically competitors in business and that they sometimes deal with adversarial situations in transactions, they also come together for causes greater than themselves and I’ve highlighted numerous examples of that. Within the Morgantown Board of Realtors as well as on their own, Realtors serve meals for those in need, donate food to local pantries, collect toys for children and raise funds for noble causes. This is the case even though Realtors have varying faiths and political viewpoints.
As I wrote these columns throughout the year, I knew that at the end of the year, I would summarize this. I had a plan and a vision as to where all of this was leading. I was trying to show you who Realtors truly are. I did that because some will tell you that Realtors have ‘commission breath’ and see clients simply as transactions. I won’t deny that there is some of that, but I hope I’ve helped show readers, that Realtors are real people who are contributing members of society. This has long been the case, but my goal was to better communicate this to the public.
After sharing experiences of helping others, we actually resolve business issues more easily…because despite our differences or the differences of our clients, we learn to find the common goodness in people, and we work together. Imagine if we could do this in all walks of life. Imagine if we could have this spirit between adversarial entities in the geopolitical world!
So, no matter your faith or what you do or do not celebrate this time of year, I’d like to encourage you to be kinder, to help others and to reflect. Let me again quote Stephanie by saying “Remember to do good things.”