We took a chance with Rachel based on her stellar preparation and detail upon our first meeting. We felt confident in her ability to lead us through the process and get top dollar in selling our home. We have moved many times before and felt confident that she would do a good job. She clearly knows the process which amd I would rate her a 5 on that. However, soon into the process we realized we had made a mistake. To us, the 2 most important characteristics in an agent are responsiveness and negotiation skills.
Let's start with responsiveness: Her follow up was slow and inconsistent. Many times we would need to talk to her and would call only to get voice mail. We would then immediately text her. Most of the time we never got her and would then need to contact her partner Marley. Marley WAS timely and she was often left to pick up the pieces that were not handled by Rachel. And many times we would be caught off guard as to which agent was helping us. When we couldn't get Rachel, Marley would help us- only to then be handed back to Rachel, etc. It got confusing and was most inefficient with everyone's time.
Regarding negotiation, there were examples when we, the sellers, had to come up with a suitable strategy based on different circumstances - isn't this what we were paying our agent for? Perhaps Rachel just doesn't have the experience required to effectively strategize amd negotiate for top dollar in higher price point homes.
In our experience, she failed to deliver when it came to negotiating for top dollar. It felt as if Rachel was not working on our behalf - rather, that she was looking out for her own interest. From the start we discussed the negotiation strategy we would follow and we all felt confident about that. Yet when the time came she did not do what she said she would do. She wanted to jump at the first "good" offer and rather than help us through the process she made it worse. She pressured us to respond quickly and it was very stressful. Rather than take stress away her inability to truly fight on our behalf added undue stress and angst.
Did we sell our house? Yes. Did we get a good offer? Yes. Those two things were really a given in light of the current market situation. The real questions to consider are: Did Rachel do an adequate job in negotiating on our behalf to get the best price possible? No. Did she fight for us through the entire process? No. Did communications fall through the cracks? Yes. Even after the sale was finalized there were outstanding issues that weren't resolved until we took it upon ourselves to follow through. In all of our moves (7 times), it is my opinion that Rachel is the absolute worst realtor we have had. I honestly believe we would have been better off selling on our own or even using an online agent. read more