Lena’s phone buzzed at 11:07 PM. Not a text, not a notification. Just a ghost vibration. Phantom anxiety.
She rolled over, wide awake now. The buyer she’d spent weeks guiding had gone dark. No reply in four days. The kind of silence that settles in your stomach like a rock.
She opened her laptop. Searched her sent folder. Looked for signs of too much follow-up or not enough. Read her own emails like a stranger might.
Three days earlier, the client had texted her, “Let’s write the offer!” after falling in love with a home they’d toured together. Lena had prepped the contract, called the listing agent, and cleared her schedule.
No agreement. Just trust, and the assumption that trust would be enough.
Then… silence. No reply. No call. No signature.
Tonight, on impulse, she opened the MLS.
There it was. Same street. Same house.
Marked “Pending.”
She clicked through. A different agent’s name sat beside the listing—one she vaguely recognized from Instagram.
Out of pure restlessness, she pulled up that agent’s profile. No slick branding. No algorithm-optimized content. Just a grid of moments.
Not listings. People.
One photo: a key in a trembling hand. The caption read:
“This moment right here?
It’s 3 months of second-guessing.
19 listings.
6 FaceTime tours.
And a mom who whispered, ‘You’ve got this, kid.’
Congrats to Maya, who trusted me to walk beside her, not just sell her something.”
Lena scanned the comments.
- “This made me tear up.”
- “So happy for her!! You’re amazing!!”
- “Reminds me of when you helped my sister in 2021. Thank you.”
She kept scrolling. No jargon. No scarcity plays. Just stories.
A client in front of a rental sign, relieved to pause the buying frenzy for a year.
A dog with a bow on its head and a caption that started: “We found the right yard before we found the right house.”
It was messy, emotional, and deeply human.
Lena closed her laptop.
The buyer hadn’t chosen a better negotiator. They chose someone who told stories that made them feel understood before the contract.
That night, Lena didn’t plan her next post. She planned her next client conversation.
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