Sunday, September 9, 2007

"I would be good for you"

She stood there on the steps of what one day would become our house visibly upset at what we were about to do. "That's illegal", she said.

My soon-to-be wife and I were about to do the unthinkable. The unconscionable. We were going to go get our own real estate agent, an agent that would pass part of the agent commission back to us. Up to that point we had shown ourselves around and looked at houses. It really isn't as hard as the real estate industry would have you believe. And incredibly, we knew pretty much what we wanted and what we liked.

We had gone to one of the open houses that Andrea Mills of Coldwell Banker routinely puts on for Dover Realty Trust. Gone to a couple, in fact. We even put in an offer on this house that didn't really go anywhere. At this point we realized the only way we could buy the house we wanted was to get an agent - someone in the club - to help us.

I'm not sure if it was the prospect of doubling her commission with little added work or if she really thought she would be good for us, but Andrea Mills had certainly pulled all of the stops to keep our business from going to anyone else. She even said that she would do something to match what a few other real estate agencies were doing to capture business in a depressed real estate market - split the commission with us. "I would be good for you." she said.

She not only willingly signed us up with her being dual agent, she managed to talk us out of the far more sensible alternative of getting an uninvolved agent to act in our best interest. Andrea Mills expertly did this with promises that she didn't keep and with threats that getting another agent that would share his commission with us was illegal.

Here is the summary of Andrea Mills being our agent:

Failed to disclose information to the buyer in a timely manner: Received two water test results on September 18 and September 21, buyer was notified on October 18, just days before our scheduled closing.

Misrepresented important data: Characterized arsenic levels in the water test results as "a little high". The levels were over 6 times the limit allowed by the EPA.

Failed to provide the actual property address: This was new construction. The address is issued by the town, and rather than find out the address of the house she was selling for both the buyer and the seller, she told me I should go to the town to find out.

Failed to communicate with the builder: We made clear to our agent, Andrea Mills, that we wished to have a driveway extension similar to those in other houses in the area. This mentioned multiple times before the driveway was paved. The extension was not added because even though Andrea Mills represented both the buyer and the seller in this transaction, she didn't bother to tell the seller of the request. The builder/seller told us this during our final walk through.

In real estate transactions, I suppose I have extremely high expectations. I expect that if an agent is being paid large sums of money to represent me in a transaction that my agent would actually work on my behalf. If you have similar expectations, don't expect Andrea to be good for you. She certainly wasn't for us.