Real estate agents in Teaneck can also have fun this time of year. My company is the V&N Group, and one Purim eve some time ago I got a call from a neighbor with quite the unique request: “Nechama, can you put a V&N sign on my sister’s house? I want to see her face in the morning when she comes back from Megillah and finds her home on the market!” I could see the humor in this as I pictured the reaction and shock this poor woman would get from having my sign on her lawn. But prudence prevailed and apparently professional Nechama isn’t as much of a jokester as private citizen Nechama would make herself out to be. It was the only time in my career that I suggested using a “For Sale by Owner” sign!
One year a request came in that really threw me a curve ball. A well respected member of the Teaneck community as well as a board member of a local synagogue called me up with a special favor and asked … “I need you to put up a V&N sign on the northwest corner of West Englewood Avenue and Jefferson”… It took me a second to get my bearings and then it hit me. “Do you mean Bnai Yeshurun?”
My mind started racing … This isn’t just one person’s house with minimal repercussions. This was in essence the people’s home, and a synagogue no less. Was I prepared to put up the whole community for sale? Yes, it’s the time for practical jokes but I couldn’t escape the feeling that I was being asked to get involved in something that goes a drop too far.
And what is it about Purim that would prompt the citizens of Teaneck to want to “move” their friends and family out of their homes with one of my signs?
I couldn’t help being reminded of something my real estate instructor told our class all those years ago while I was going for my license: When you are talking to a seller, always refer to the property as a “house,” and when you are talking to a buyer always refer to it as a “home.”
A house? Sure, it’s some concrete, 2-by-4s and roofing shingles … But a home? That’s memories, community and as my granddaughter says, “where you can hear the dog barking with joy as you walk towards the front door.”
On Purim we celebrate community. We are mandated to greet our neighbors with food, look out for the needy and listen to the telling of one of our greatest stories “B’rov Am,” amongst a gathering of people.
Our streets may be lined with houses, but it’s on holidays like these that we are reminded that it’s our homes all joined together that make us such a wonderful community.
Whether you look at the place you live in as your “home” or just as a “house,” it is the community that makes the adage “location, location, location” so true.
Nechama Polak is the broker of record and owner of V and N Group LLC, located at 1401 Palisade Avenue in Teaneck. [email protected]
201-826-8809.
