Please read through to the end to know what you are getting into. As other people have said, wow, where do I start? The whole experience was a nightmare I won't repeat. Did Kim do her job and get my home sold fast, yes she did. I got a full price offer in 6 days and we accepted. The offer was mostly cash. Kim said she still wanted her girls to hold an open house on the weekend and we agreed.
After the open house, Kim said a client of hers she had been working with and showing homes to for the last year wanted to buy our home, also a full price offer. My husband and I initially declined, the other people offered first #1 and #2 they were mostly cash and a quick close. Kim's clients still had to put their home up for sale, sell it and who knows how many contingencies there could be, so it didn't make sense. Twice Kim spoke to me about accepting their offer instead of the first. I explained that if her clients didn't go through, I wouldn't be able to pay two mortgages. Kim gave my husband and I reassurances that wouldn't happen, so after using scare tactics (said the other agent was tough to deal with among other things) we accepted her clients offer.
I should have gone with my gut on this one. This would be a double commission for her and her team and when it comes to home repairs etc. she would be looking out for their best interest and not ours and that is absolutely what happened.
When it came time for the home inspection and list of repairs, Kim reassured me they were only asking for health and safety items and nothing more. What a joke! There was a gas pipe outside that was discolored and they wanted it replaced. Seriously, that is cosmetic not health and safety. The document said the repairs had to be done by a licensed contractor. Um, one of the "Health and Safety" repair requests was to replace a light switch cover because it had about a 1/2 inch crack on the bottom. While the electrician was there to fix a different plug, we had him check to see if there was any kind of issue with a crack in a light switch cover. Shocker, no danger whatsoever. There were other items on Kim's supposed "Health and Safety" list as well.
Selling a home is stressful in and of itself, but if you add to it the electronic signature process Kim uses it compounds the stress. It sounded great from the get go, just sign electronically, but it wasn't that easy. I don't know about most people, but I have only owned 3 homes in my lifetime and I am far from familiar with all the legal jargon that real estate documents entail. It was really uncomfortable signing these things when we had no idea what they said or meant, so we had no idea what we were signing. Not to mention there were days we would get 2 or 3 of these things to sign. When you do this process with a notary it takes a while, but notary's always explain to you what you are signing and it is comforting.
During this process when I was at my highest in stress and quite frankly completely annoyed at the "Health and Safety" list. I texted Kim and later spoke to her on the phone as I was ready to pull the plug on this deal. She acted really sweet and tried calm me down. She told me she was on vacation and sent me a picture. In the lovely picture you can see her son in front of her, she is smiling/laughing at him and he is flipping me off with both fingers. She later told me she wanted to tell me about the picture. I said I didn't really see it. She explained to my husband and I that when she took the picture with the boys, she didn't see what her son was doing and she sent the picture then realized what her son was doing and got mad at him because it was for a client. Who does that?
The other item I felt was classless had to do with our pool table. It was only about a year old and I asked Kim if her clients wanted to buy it. We decided we didn't want to move it. The first offer the people wanted it left. At that time we wanted the pool table and weren't too thrilled about giving it up. Kim's clients didn't ask for it and I suspected it was because she wanted to try and get an edge up on the first client. In any case, Kim said she wanted to buy it for her clients as a gift and she had a gift for us as well. Once again she took a situation that could have been nice and made it classless. She did buy the pool table for her client and guess what we got. Yep, nothing, not even a card! Mind you I don't expect to get a gift from my agent, but don't say it after you are paying for a big ticket item for your other client and then not come through, that is just tacky.
Kim said she had 13 deals going at this time. Makes you think if you are getting the best service. read more