Professional and knowledgeable! Easy to work with. A great asset to the Willmar realty community!!read more

I returned to my home town of Willmar, MN, in the summer of 2015 after briefly relocating to San…read moreAntonio, TX, to fulfill my dying husband's wish to return home to Texas in the Spring of 2015. Ms. Bower's sold us our first home in Willmar, MN in 2011. We decided to use Ms. Bowers in 2015, simply because we knew her and our situation was very stressful. Unfortunately, that was a mistake and we should have chosen more carefully the second time around. Ms. Bowers always spent extraordinary time touting her accomplishments. She explained time and again how she had earned more Quality Service Awards than any other realtor in Willmar. It should be noted that the standards for the Quality Service Awards are VERY low, requiring 25-30% of your clients to give you a survey rating of 90% or above. That leaves me wondering about the other 75% of Ms. Bower's clients. Upon my return from Texas in July of 2015, I was unwell, had lost both my husband and beloved dog and was living in an untenable situation. Even so, Ms. Bowers placed me in some questionable circumstances. Because she was acting as a dual agent, she steered us in the direction of a home that was much too large, had only a one car garage and was in need of many repairs. I spent thousands in the first 6 months on many things required to bring the home to an acceptable standard. She also broke her promise to have a roofer come and look at the condition of the roof which ended up costing me $8,000 while the disclosure did not share that information squarely. When we contacted this realtor about the roof she returned a lengthy twelve-page personal narrative rather that a professional letter wherein she addressed our questions and concerns. She spoke of things such as gift cards she gives all her clients and get well cards she sent to my husband. She was unapproachable and once again touted her stellar realtor status and reputation within the community. The tenor of her response was quite inappropriate with her detailing personal conversations between us now making them wide open to public scrutiny. It seemed like she was attempting to divert the reader's attention away from the matters at hand in order to frame herself in a positive light and derail the argument. She egregiously went on to break her own professional Standards of Practice via the National and State association of Realtors (Standards 1-9) regarding client privacy as noted below: *Realtors shall not knowingly during or following the termination of professional relationships with their clients: 1) Reveal confidential information about clients. Yet she clearly details Mr. Alvarado's medical condition, that was nowhere noted in our correspondence. She even tried to play physician telling me how long my husband had been on dialysis when she confused the difference between a stint and a stent. Then she went on to expose where my daughter worked. Her disregard for her own professional Code of Ethics was extremely troubling. Looking back, I was simply too vulnerable to really be on my game. Ms. Bowers knew that and used it to her advantage. I have since sold the monster house to a group home company which should clearly tell you why a widow and her daughter should have never been encouraged to buy the home in the first place. I hope this review will encourage that other 75% of her clientele to speak out by sharing their true opinions of Emily Bowers, realtor at Century 21, rather than whispering about it behind closed doors! Anyone having further questions after reading this review, please feel free to contact me and I will assist you to the best of my ability. Sincerely, Kimberly K. Curtis-Alvarado