Listen to this articleA Long Island business owner aims to “disrupt” the real estate industry. In “Nobody Move (Without Reading This),” author Robert Esposito highlights the importance of supporting consumers as they embark on moving, which is considered one of life’s biggest stress triggers.
“For far too long the vast majority of those who work in the residential real estate sector including agents, mortgage brokers, attorneys, home inspectors and movers, have failed their clients,” Esposito, the owner of Hauppauge-based Relocators, a moving and storage company, said in a news release about the book.
Those working in the industry, he said, “wrongly focus on supporting them and the real way to be serving them is to be preparing them. I have seen this happen repeatedly and this is why I decided to write ‘Nobody Move’ and do something about it.
“It’s time that all of us who work with people during this difficult, confusing and emotional time commit to helping them, educating them and doing all we can to reduce stress. This is good for clients and great for long-term business success,” Esposito said.
The book features in-the-trenches tales of moving disasters, and ways to avoid them, opening with a story from Long Island’s own Dee Snider, the lead singer and songwriter of the heavy metal band Twisted Sister. As Snider recounts in the book, his family moved from Long Island to Florida when he was a kid. Once they arrived in Florida, he said, the moving company would not take their possessions off the truck without an additional payment of several thousand dollars – money the family did not have.
In other parts of the book, Esposito shares insights of how divorce, and the parting of items, can impact trauma.
“The emotions around moving combined with divorce create a whole set of challenges,” Esposito said in the news release. “Far too often we, as movers, find ourselves in the middle of these issues.”
For instance, in one situation, “we moved a family’s possessions from a home to our warehouse for temporary storage. Divorce papers were filed when the items were in storage and they stayed there for over 6 years as the couple fought it out in court,” Esposito said.
Service providers, he said, can help clients navigate these challenges with early support.
“It’s my goal to disrupt the real estate industry,” he said.
“Real estate agents, mortgage brokers, attorneys and even moving companies need to be empathetic and listen to clients first and help them understand the emotional journey they will be going through,” he added. “This needs to be done at the beginning, not at the end of the transaction with a basket of fruit or bottle of champagne. Fruit rots, but a caring and attentive approach that builds a relationship will last a lifetime and this approach is great for business.”
Published by Red Penguin Press, the book will be available online and in bookstores on Jan. 15.