I was speaking with a fellow Massachusetts attorney yesterday about our practices. He is a partner in a downtown Boston firm; my firm is mid-sized and mostly suburban, with an office on Newbury Street in Boston, but one office in the Western suburb of Waltham and one office in the Southern suburb of Braintree. After we spent the better part of an hour hammering out the terms of a purchase and sale agreement for commercial property in Boston, Massachusetts, we agreed that he would do the changes in the latest draft, send it along to me for final review, and we could sign things up before the end of this month.
When we finished out work, and we exchanged pleasantries about how smoothly our negotiations had gone, and how we had developed a basically fair deal for both sides, he commented to me that this result is why he has enjoyed practicing real estate law so much. He said the common enterprise which followed the negotiations makes real estate transactions different from all other areas of law. His point was that when you have a willing Buyer and a willing Seller, and we perform required due diligence through inspections and confirmations with governmental authorities, we have a “deal” and all sides are working together to get the sale closed and the buyer moved in.
Upon reflection, it occurred to me that this was the charm of real estate work in general. After the preliminary discussions, and offers and counter-offers, the deal gets done, and both sides are generally pleased with the outcome. This is not the sale of a business where the Seller knows of some changes in revenue projections which mean that the Buyer may be overpaying. This is not a litigation where there is a winner and a loser.
We are engaged in a professional where everyone can win and walk away smiling. I have been impressed with how many realtors comment about the great feeling they experience when the deal is closed, and the Sellers and the Buyers coalesce into discussions about maintenance issues or reliable artisans and contractors to use.
So, at a “feel-good” time of the year, after we have thanked our young men and women for defending our country on Veterans Day, and prepare to thank a higher being for the joys of family and home and good friendship on Thanksgiving, we can also have good feelings about our profession. Each in our own way, we make the dream of home ownership a reality for people every day. And we do it together, both sides working together to try to make things as manageable as possible for Buyers and Sellers who have justifiably relied upon us for assistance. I salute us all.