We sold our house with Lynn Fronckowiak in 2012 and this review has been a long time coming. Our home was listed for one day and we had not even had our open house that was scheduled for the weekend yet, when she received an offer from unrepresented buyers with no financing in place that was literally $500 over what we had told her that our bottom line pricing was. We were first time sellers and I had originally bought the house from my grandmother, so we were completely inexperienced. She took full advantage of this and when we asked how long we could take to respond, she advised that we respond that night and when we asked if we should counter, she said that countering their offer may scare them away and she wouldn't advise it. These were buyers that contacted her directly, so they had no buyers agent. In NY, where we lived at the time, an agent could represent both the seller and the buyer and be a dual agent. Therefore, getting both commissions. We had negotiated a 2.5% sellers commission to her and the standard 3% to the buyers agent. Now she would make 5.5%, if we went with her buyers. This was day one on the market and we had no other offers. These buyers had absolutely no pre approval or even a pre-qualification! We did not know that they should have this in place until I spoke with a friends mother that informed me of that it was absolutely crazy to accept it. Lynn completely downplayed this. Now, having gained some real estate experience, I realize that a realtor that truly had our best interests in mind would never have suggested we lock up our house on day 1, prior to our scheduled open house, with buyers that have no financing, are coming in a ~5% under list price and are going to be represented by her as well! We ultimately decided that we wanted to wait until after our open house that weekend to finalize and accept an offer. We expressed that we felt incredibly uncomfortable with her being a dual agent. We discussed the buyers getting a different agent. She would only have another agent from her office represent them, but she advised us strongly against this, as she told us that it could slow the process down, that she could keep the buyers happy if anything bad came up in inspections and that she knows how to handle FHA loans (their loan type), etc. She talked us into her representing both sides, because we were naive and we needed our house to sell within slightly over 2 months and she had us convinced that she could do this if she worked both ends, otherwise we may not get it done in time. Mind you, this was less than a week into our slightly over 2 months.
She had promised that Weichert places multiple advertisements for their open houses in various publications. When we checked, our house was not advertised on any paid publication (as she had promised it would be) outside of the MLS. They did not even place the road signs for the open houses anywhere other than the entrance to our private road and in the lawn. There is a main road that intersected about 1/3 of a mile away that I always saw open house signs on when houses were for sale off of it. They did not add a sign there. It seemed that she did not want to advertise our open house. Shady. Regardless, the open house was busy and we still received multiple offers after the open house (in a dead December market, ~2 weeks prior to Christmas). We had 3 offers and went back with highest and best. Surprise, her buyers were highest and one decided not to budge at all...hmmm. We will never know if there may have been other offers held back or if the one that did not budge, really did go up. I would not put it past her. Be careful and avoid Lynn. Over time, as I have gained experience in the real estate process, I realized more and more just how much of a ride that she had taken us for. read more