2. We listed the home referenced above plus one other home with Mart again in Sept. 2016.
Here are some of the unfortunate things that we experienced:
7. Mart thought that a good solution to one of our tenants illegally installing a fence and then threatening to illegally remove it at one of the homes was to compensate this tenant for her illegal actions to "hold the deal together" without consulting us first.
1. We listed one of our homes with Mart a few years ago and he was not able to sell it. We probably should have looked for another agent after that.
I was so happy to close on a house last Friday and a lot of that was attributed to the professional guidance of my Realtor Kathy White.
Great Broker
8. We had to follow-up with Mart over the course of a few weeks, multiple times to find out when the buyer for one of the homes wanted to move in so that we could coordinate with one of our tenants her move out date. His inability to get back to us at all, let alone in a timely manner is another example of his lack of communication.
Beware. Our realtor, Stevie K., was very discourteous through the entire process, especially move-out. Be ready for curt, condescending, all in all rude correspondence. Calls where we needed something for the house were seldom (never) returned without several follow ups, usually taking on average of a week plus to respond. Repairs were snail-like, though in fairness, they all did eventually get taken care of. Furthermore, sneaky and underhanded. Loyal tenants for two years. When the time came to renew for a third, our agent actually called me (maybe 1 of 3 times we had spoken on phone over the course of the 2+ years. Usually all you get is a one sentence emails with poor grammar and capitalization, as if you are one of her office cronies, not a client) to offer us a verbal renewal at the same rate. Accepted their offer, and was told documentation would follow for us to sign and remit. A full two weeks later (which also happened to be 62 days before the end of our lease, where they also required 60 days of notice if you are vacating at end of lease) got mail with our renewal information. The price, however, which had been verbally agreed to on our phone call to remain the same from the two years previous, had gone up 10%. Thinking this had to be a typo, considering our previous conversation, I called her. Of course no answer, but I eventually did receive a snarky email back outlining how our verbal agreement doesn’t matter, and that the owner decided he needed the extra 10% to accommodate the upward trend in market. Fair enough I guess. My complaint though here is two-fold. First, the fact that during those two weeks it took the piece of mail to travel 7 miles, she never called, texted, or even sent one of her famous emails letting us know the price we had discussed and planned for was no longer in the picture is deeply unprofessional. Even more upsetting though is the manner in which this was communicated. For a so called business professional to speak to a client that way, was completely off the wall, crazy wrong. She has the audacity to further suggest that if we did not come to a decision within the next day, (now at 61 days before end of lease) we would be held accountable for double rent as per a shady stipulation in our lease agreement. I even offered to pay the inflated rate on a month by month basis until we were able to secure a new residence, and was, of course, rudely shot down. Immediately wrote her indicating we would be leaving, as I had had about enough of her poor attitude and service. Finally, during the move out process, we were charged hundreds of dollars above and beyond reasonable prices for "cleaning and yard maintenance" despite previous conversations where she indicated that the owner was not concerned with the condition of the "yard" (ie. weeds). Over two hundred dollars to clean an oven (which again, in fairness was dirty) and wipe dust off ceiling fan blades. Also charged $300.00 to mow a lawn (that was mowed the week before we moved out), trim bushes along the side of the house (that were not part of the agreed upon “just maintain the grass” conversation), and the best part, to remove a fire-pit that we forgot about in the back yard. When I say fire-pit, I literally mean one of the flimsy, metal, above ground ones that you purchase from a hardware store (2’X3’ diameter, no more than 5 pounds). At least I got a good laugh out of that. I could go on and on and on with example after example, but I would strongly advise against using this agency. If you have to, avoid this realtor AT ALL COSTS!
4. We told Mart that getting the most $$ was not important, that selling the home by November 30th was, for tax purposes. We wanted to price the home at $299,000 for a quick sale but Mart insisted on listing at $319,000. Within a few weeks, with no offers, we were down to the $299k that we originally wanted to be at and just had to pull the home off the market with Mart, again, not able to make a sale happen.
6. The other home that we had listed with him was supposed to close on November 16th, then again on November 23rd, and at this point who knows, because both he and the closing agents/lawyers completely dropped the ball. We told Mart, before listing both properties that we would be out of the country pretty much all of November, yet he and the closing agent never bothered to communicate to my husband and I that the expectation was that we would need to make our way to a US Embassy (we were nowhere near one and even if we had been, there were no appointments available) to have the closing paperwork signed and expedited via mail.
Fantastic Brokerage! The agents and staff are amazing. They're always willing to help and even the brokers are always available. The in-house title department is wonderful too! And it was so nice to have an attorney in-house to answer all of our questions and concerns!
My husband and I have had a terrible experience with Mart Solu, one of the Remax Agents, who we did know beforehand, which is proof that you should not hire an agent just because you know that person. We recommend that you choose another agent.
9. We cancelled the last week of our trip abroad (planned since February 2016) and rescheduled our flight home to come back and take care of the closing and then were told that there was a mistake on the paperwork and now we are not closing today because of this mistake and thus, all of the time, money, etc. spent flying home early was pointless.
3. Mart did not get along with our long-term tenant t one of the homes and we had to spend our time fielding calls and emails from both Mart and our tenant where each would complain about the other's actions and behaviors. It was beyond childish and unprofessional and was very stressful for us, since we no longer live in Sarasota. Our tenant told us that Mart would come over unannounced at times since Mart lived across the street and felt like his privacy was being invaded.
5. Mart told us that he would have someone come over to look at fixing some outside soffit that was damaged, that potential buyers were commenting on during showings. We had to follow-up with him on this, as he never got back to us, and to this day, he still never responded and never had someone come over and look at it. This is just one example of his poor communication.
11. Probably worst of all, is Mart's inability to simply say, "I made a mistake and I'm really sorry. Here's what I'm going to do to fix it."
This was not an easy sale, it was in probate with 5 heirs and Kathy was was on top of it, from day 1. Being a realtor myself, I can recognize & appreciate her professionalism .
10. Mart suggested that we allow the buyer of the property to move in before closing to help, again, hold the deal together. Never agree to this! As a home owner you have no protection and nothing in writing. Worse, we had to again email Mart more than once for an answer on what date or if the buyer had even moved in. His excuse was that the buyer's agent was on a cruise. Why he couldn't tell us that straight-away, I have no idea and it was evident by this time that his poor communication skills were impacting us yet again.
Re Max Alliance Group is a US Real Estate Agency based in Sarasota, Florida. Re Max Alliance Group is located at 2000 Webber St, Sarasota, FL 34239, USA.
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