Review About:

Author

 Connor Barry (N/R)
Rating:
*****

Relationship
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Review #2194

I'm in the process of using Beth as a buyer's agent when buying my first house. I'm an intelligent engineer, but not very knowledgeable about real estate or home construction in general. I'm not related to Beth, and I don't benefit from reviewing her... nor did she ask me to write this.

In my opinion, and I'm sure that of her numerous other customers, Beth is extremely honest, straightforward, caring and considerate. She made it very clear to me from day one that she was nothing if not 100% transparent and impartial. She shares her evaluations, but allows me to make the decisions. She's extremely empathetic and tuned to what kind of feeling I get about each house and neighborhood. She has been available to me at almost every hour of the day, to answer questions and explain the buying/selling process. She has made numerous trips across the state (a 45 minute drive each way) to my ideal neighborhoods, and arranged additional trips to show my favorite houses to friends and family. Her paperwork is neat and organized each time. She pulled all available comps and researched lots of other aspects of the surrounding area (city zoning, future residential and commercial building plans and restrictions). She explained the different types of foundation structures and subflooring: I learned about slab on grade where they remix the soil down 12 feet, vs elevated cement on casons with a steel brace, vs elevated wood flooring, french drains with dehumidifiers, sump pits. She explained the various types of houses built for each decade, bi/tri-levels, the features I'd be buying if I stuck to newer houses, and so on. She knows to smell for moisture and look for signs of water damage. I'm sure I'm forgetting most of what we talked about. After her 10+ years of experience and hundreds of clients, she has experience few do, and you can tell she loves her job.

Regarding the previous poster's negative comments:

She clearly stated to me in our first couple one-on-one conversations that she had a $250 retainer fee. This is spelled clearly out in my Right-To-Buy contract, section 8(a)(3) - "Retainer Fee". She would only collect it in case we couldn't find a house and I decided to give up looking after so many days. This was obvious to me, and it should have been obvious to any sane person. People don't work for nothing, and I wouldn't trust or work with someone who said they were free. In fact, for the amount of work she's gone through, $250 is a bargain. If she DID forget to put her retainer fee in the previous poster's contract, I doubt Beth forgot to verbally mention it to her. It looks like Beth even tried to waive it after the fact just to be rid of the hassle, but was probably silenced by the lawyers this woman threw at her.

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