Please learn from my mistakes and save yourself a lot of stress and heartache. The customer service…read moreat Allen Tate High Point is abysmal - that includes their real estate agents AND their loan agents. This is not my first time buying or selling; I had a much much better experience with Coldwell Banker on westover when I first moved to Greensboro. I should have used them again. Or in the future I will probably try Help You Sell (Sale by Owner).
When you sell through an agency like Allen Tate, your agent will get thousands of dollars from you (up to 6% of your sale price), so choose very very wisely. Talk to friends/families/co-workers, read reviews ... don't jump into a contract quickly if you can avoid it.
For what my agent did for me, it was NOT worth the money. She posted some photos to the MLS, stuck a sign in my yard (but never even invested the time to come back and post an "under contract" sign, so I was still getting driveby traffic asking me about the house), took a few phone calls, showed me a handful of houses, and filled in a couple of contracts. But mostly what she did was threaten, bully, and misinform me through the entire process. Things got so bad that I consulted another agency and a lawyer for advice and ended up calling the Broker in Charge of the High Point office to ask for a different agent (which he didn't accommodate, claiming well she knows the most about the deal right now).
My agent was nice only up to the point I signed the contract to work with her. After that, the customer service went downhill fast.
1. I only had a few weeks to find and close on a new house. During that time (October) my agent goes on vacation for a week and a half and refuses to let another agent at the office show me properties in the interim. "It's not good practice," she said, "but I'll be available by phone." She was not available, and ignored my calls and texts.
2. whenever I expressed concerns about anything - the value I was getting, the fact that I didn't want to do certain repairs, that I had concerns about extending due diligence for the buyer, how I wasn't going to have a place to live for 2 weeks and we needed to extend the closing date on my sale -- she would threaten me. Threaten me with, "if you back out, you'll still owe Allen Tate 6%. I dont work for free." Or if you don't to do this or that, the buyer is going to back out. Or if we have to re-list, people are going to know something is wrong and you won't get as much.
It makes you feel powerless, like you have no one backing you up. Like you have to agree to everything the buyer and seller wants. Clearly all my agent cared about was closing the deals and getting her commission.
3. When it came time on the flip side for me to ask for repairs on the place I was buying, she yelled at me "you can't ask for that! If it's still working, you can't ask for it." The thing I wanted to ask for was replacement of a 13-year-old water heater that the inspection report said was at the end of its usable life. When I bought my previous home, I did get a $4000 allowance for a very old roof that was not leaking, so what this agent said was a complete lie.
The loan process was a separate, terrible experience where I was constantly talked down to. They don't even have the courtesy to set up a time with you to go through forms and talk about what you're signing. They just bombard you with a bunch of emails and then blame you for being late.
Then on closing day, the loan agent didn't even have the Closing Disclosure correct so after the hassle of taking off work and sitting through an hour of signing documents, I had to urgently return to the attorney's office to sign corrected forms.
Just an all around nightmare. So like I said, please learn from my mistakes.