A Chattanooga-area house had been home to the same family for 45 years.
By the time Realtor Bekah Cochran became involved, however, the family was facing a difficult transition.
The owners were aging and needed assisted living. Their daughter and son-in-law were helping them make the transition, and Cochran began working with the family to figure out what to do with the home.
First came an estate sale. Then came a list of things that could be done to make the house show better. Finally, Cochran listed and sold it.
“That house was paid for, and they had lived there for 45 years,” Cochran says. “Selling it gave them the resources they needed to move into assisted living.”
For Cochran, stories like that have changed the way she thinks about her work.
A house might appear on a real estate listing as a collection of facts: bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage, acreage and asking price. But behind nearly every sale or purchase is something that can’t be found on a listing sheet.
Something in someone’s life is changing.
“When I think about why someone is buying or selling, I think about the stories and the people,” Cochran says. “And it’s not always for a happy reason.”
Sometimes a marriage is ending or a job has been lost, she continues. Aging parents might need to leave a longtime home for assisted living, while a young couple might be moving to Chattanooga to begin a career and build a family.
After years in real estate, those are the things Cochran remembers.
“When I think about what has stuck with me over 20 years in real estate,” she says, “it’s the stories and the people.”
More than a transaction
Cochran has watched some of those stories unfold for years.
She’s helped couples relocate to Chattanooga and then watched as they built families, entered the school system and became part of the community. Some are now ready to buy again.
She’s also helped families dismantle homes filled with decades of memories because their parents could no longer live there.
“They’re sorting through childhood memories and possessions while helping their parents make the move to assisted living,” Cochran says.
She described it as life coming full circle.
The experience has also taught her that a Realtor sometimes needs to provide something that has little to do with showing a house.
There are moments when a client needs encouragement, Cochran says, and others when the person needs space – or a tissue.
Her job in those situations, she says, is to understand the emotion without allowing it to take control of the process.
“I’ve been in your shoes,” Cochran tells clients. “And here’s how we’re going to move through this.”
That can become especially important when the circumstances surrounding a sale are difficult.
Cochran recalls working with a couple who were separating. Much of their money was tied up in their home, making the eventual sale important to both of them.
When they interviewed agents, Cochran gave them an honest assessment of the home’s value, even though it wasn’t what they wanted to hear.
“I told them the truth,” she says. “I take the numbers seriously and give clients my honest assessment of what their home is worth.”
The couple chose another agent who believed the home could sell for their desired price, and Cochran wished them well. Several months later, after the house had failed to sell, they came back to her. By then, the market had changed and Cochran’s assessment of the home’s value was even lower.
This time, they followed her strategy.
She listed the house, marketed it and ultimately sold it.
“It was not a happy situation. It was extremely stressful,” Cochran says. “My role was to remain levelheaded and be their advocate while they were dealing with all of the emotions and financial concerns that came with it.”
The lesson has become central to how Cochran approaches real estate: Sometimes, helping people means understanding what they’re experiencing, while other times it means telling them something they don’t want to hear.
Calling different plays
The same principle applies to the housing market itself.
Cochran has worked through periods when a house could attract multiple showings and offers within hours. Today, she says, sellers can wait much longer for buyers to appear.
“The market is like a river,” she says. “It’s always changing.”
At times, Cochran says, navigating that river requires a life jacket, a paddle and quick reactions. At others, the water slows and calls for patience. During her 20 years as a Realtor, she’s experienced both.
“There were times when the market was moving so fast that we were getting multiple showings and offers within hours,” she says. “Now, sellers might be wondering whether their home is priced correctly, staged properly or being marketed effectively.”
Strategies that worked in one market don’t necessarily work in another. For Cochran, however, adapting doesn’t mean abandoning what she considers the foundation of her business.
“It’s about the relationships and the families,” she says. “It’s about understanding not only what my clients want to do but why they want to do it.”
It is a distinction Cochran has come to appreciate more as she’s gained experience.
When someone at a civic group, Bible study or community gathering asks Cochran about the housing market, her first instinct is to turn the question back on them rather than launch into interest rates, inventory or prices.
“Why are you asking?” she says. “Tell me more.”
Listening, Cochran says, has become part of her growth.
The answer might reveal someone who’s merely curious about the market. Or it might reveal a family considering a move, someone confronting a change in circumstances or a person who needs guidance but isn’t yet ready to act.
Asking questions gives Cochran the opportunity to determine what the person actually needs.
“Then we can build their plan,” she says, “or I can just be their friend.”
A happier chapter
Not every transition Cochran encounters is difficult.
Some of her favorite calls involve families trying to bring grandparents to Chattanooga to live closer to their children and grandchildren.
Cochran has worked with families whose parents lived in other parts of the country, coordinating with agents there as the parents sold one home while searching for another here.
The move can still be taxing.
“Buying and selling a property, boxing up your entire life into boxes, putting it on a moving truck is very stressful,” Cochran says.
But the reason for the move can make the outcome satisfying.
Cochran recalled grandparents living in the North whose family wanted them closer. An agent there handled the sale of their house while Cochran worked with them in Chattanooga. The transactions were coordinated so the grandparents could sell there and buy here in relatively quick succession.
For people who are downsizing, Cochran says, selling a longtime home can also free resources for the next stage of their lives.
Although the transaction ends once the paperwork is signed and the family settles into its new home, Cochran’s connection to many of her clients continues.
She’s helped enough families relocate to Chattanooga that the people she once knew primarily as clients have become familiar faces in the community.
She encounters families she helped years ago at schools and community events, watches their children grow up and counts some former clients among her friends. And sometimes, on Signal Mountain, she sees grandparents she helped relocate to begin their next chapter standing on the sidelines at a ball field, watching their grandchildren play.
“It brings everything full circle,” Cochran says, “and gives me joy to know I was part of their story.”