What the Mortgage Industry Taught Me About Death
My phone rang on a Saturday evening. I didn't recognize the number.
It was a real estate agent, calling on behalf of a couple I'd never met, who had already submitted an offer on a house, who now needed a pre-approval letter — tonight — so the seller would take them seriously.
I took the call. I did the work. We got them the letter. Did questions linger? Yes. Did they fully consider their budget, their options….no. It was push it through and rush — which sets up for a stressful experience….but it didn't have to.
Compare that to the clients who called me before any of that happened. The ones who came in on a Tuesday afternoon, no pressure, no deadline, no seller waiting. We sat down and actually looked at things. What could they afford? What did they want to afford? What happened if one of them lost their job? What if rates moved? They had time to explore, to question, to change their minds. By the time they found a house they loved, we had already stress-tested their plan from six different angles and had them pre-approved with underwriting.
Here's the thing: people don't like discussing money. They avoid it, delay it, get vague when you ask direct questions. I spent 25 years watching otherwise competent adults go completely sideways when the conversation turned to finances. The discomfort is real. The avoidance reaches across incomes, price points, and real estate experience.
Death is the same.
The same instinct that makes people submit an offer before getting pre-approved is the same instinct that makes people say "we'll deal with that later" when someone brings up end-of-life planning. Later. When there's time. When it's not so awkward. When the moment is right.
The moment is never right. That's the trap.
But there's another part to this story. In the case of a mortgage, the person who waited too long is the one who suffers. Stress, bad decisions, less leverage. They learn their lesson. Life moves on.
With end-of-life planning, the person who waited is often gone — and this time it's their spouse, their adult daughter, their exhausted son who lives three states away — scrambling to make irreversible decisions about things they were never told, never asked, never prepared for. Medical choices. Financial accounts. Digital lives. A house full of stuff and no instructions.
You can plan early. Calmly. With time to explore your options, ask questions, change your mind, and make choices that actually reflect what you want. Or you can leave it for later — and hand that chaos to someone who loves you.
Plan now. It's one of the kindest, most loving things you can do for those you love.
Mindy Rozear is the founder of Plan To End Well, an end-of-life planning advocate helping the sandwich generation get their affairs in order — before the saturday night call.
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