I hired Kriste Roberts to short sale my house. She represents herself very nice and personable. Once I signed the contract, I discovered that her methods of selling a house are very different than other Realtors.
She did not do any of the normal "selling house" tasks such as open houses & caravans, claiming they don't work - though other friends that were also short selling at the same time had very good luck with these.
When we did get an offer, they wanted the buyer to sell an addendum to open escrow immediately. If they end up backing out then they would lose that deposit, making it less likely the buyer would back out at last minute. They would advise me not to accept a very good offer if they had not signed the addendum. If I had accepted the offer anyways, they would not have devoted any time to it because it was a throw-away (at least this is the impression I got).
She has a clause in her contracts that you must pay a certain amount of money (around $1800) if you terminate the contract. So even though I was unhappy with her and wanted to switch, I couldn't without paying out a lot of money. I thought this was standard until I spoke with other Realtors. She will not make a single move unless she is guaranteed to somehow get paid for it.
I wish I had done more homework when selecting a Realtor. Though my house is sold now, it took three times as long as it took other people I know in the same situation. Realtors will tell you that some offers fall through, and that is par for the course. I also found that the termination clause is also not standard.
Aside from the above, I rarely heard from them. If you are the type to rather know what is going on, then great. But something as large as selling my house, I would like to have an update or call every now and then. I had to call them and remind them I had an offer on the house - of which she was not aware because it was lost one someone's desk. They have too many listing and not enough people to devote the attention that each needs.
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