Keller Williams Encino-Sherman Oaks

We were first time home sellers and unsure about the process. Previously, we had our property listed with another agent for over a year with no success. We were unsure that we’d ever be able to sell it. Our tenants had abused the place and we wanted to not ever be landlords again. We were very cautious since so many things had gone wrong before. My husband researched on the Internet for local agents. We had no one to give us a referral.
After meeting Stephanie, my husband and I felt confident in her abilities.
Stephanie and her office really took us by the hand and guided us through everything. We are a pretty far distance from the office. The only time we met in person was to interview Stephanie… otherwise everything was taken care of on phone, online, and through the mail. This was very convenient for us.
THE TEAM: Stephanie has a construction company that worked with her/​us to get the condo into great shape.
Chung Mi Ferraro (member of Stephanie’s team) worked with us closely and kept us in the loop. She made me feel secure every step of the way. She was always very professional, and more important to me, also warm and friendly.
THE RESULTS: The construction company completed the work a day earlier than planned, even with bad weather. We listed the condo the day before Christmas Eve. Almost immediately, we had a solid offer, followed by two more that were higher than what we were listing it for. We decided whos offer we were going to accept before the first week of the new year was completed. The nightmare property that we had tried to sell with someone else at a much lower price previously for over a year? Sold. For more than we asked. Within two weeks with Stephanie.
CONCLUSION: I cannot say enough positive words about Stephanie and her wonderful team! Together, they exceeded our expectations and made selling our property an exciting experience. It’s with great enthusiasm that I recommend her real estate services. You’ll not be disappointed.

My wife and I were recommended to Stephanie from an out of area Keller Williams agent to represent us in selling our home. We’ve had some outstanding real estate agents over the years, but sadly, it turned out to be a very bad decision to go with Stephanie. While Stephanie promised us she would personally be substantially involved with all of the marketing creation, showings, and deal negotiation except for a few instances where she couldn’t make a last minute showing (which we understood), nothing could be further from the truth. Stephanie simply handled us off to her inexperienced and negligent staff, which she did a very poor job of supervising. My wife and I felt like we were part of a «mill» and did not receive the personalized attention Stephanie reassured us we would get. The only exception to her inexperienced staff was a licensed agent by the name of Dessie Vescio. Dessie was the only true professional on Stephanie’s team. However, Dessie is hampered by her surrounding team members.
Stephanie talked a very good game about her «strengths» and ability to get all of the details correct. In fact, she said that she is best at the actual «deal”– making sure to get it done and not waste our time with unqualified buyers. Most things she told us and assured us she would do turned out to be wrong.
While we initially were in escrow reasonably quickly as we priced our home to sell fast at the end of May 2015, she never followed up with the buyers’ agent or even let us know that after 10 days, the initial purchase deposit was not in escrow when it was supposed to be in escrow within 3 days. Had we known of this major oversight, we would have cancelled our escrow promptly and put the house back on the market quickly. Approximately 14 days after escrow opened, the buyers cancelled. If buyers don’t promptly put money into escrow, they likely are not serious buyers. Unfortunately, by the time we were back on the market towards the end of June, the market was much slower as buyers were focused on graduation and summer vacation.
Other problems we had with Stephanie included her inability to get the marketing details correct as we had to repeatedly re-​write her marketing copy and fix the grammar and factual mistakes. When we were finally in escrow again in December, Stephanie had repeated problems and missteps dealing with the buyer who happened to be a broker. She was easily outsmarted and many times confused by the buyer/​broker because the buyer/​broker was willing to offset the purchase price by part of his commission. Stephanie several times wrote our counteroffer incorrectly because she did not know how to properly deal with and account for the buyer/broker’s offset of his commission as it related to the purchase price. Had we not carefully reviewed and re-​reviewed our counteroffers, Stephanie would had us submit incorrect counteroffers due to her pricing confusion.
While we acknowledge that Stephanie is an experienced agent, that experience did not hold true for us. We approached her many times throughout the representation to discuss our displeasure with her. She simply made excuses and veiled promises to improve, but ultimately, did not improve and continued to make mistakes.
My wife and I do not recommend Stephanie or Keller Williams Encino. We now see where Stephanie gets her dismissive attitude and lack of follow through. Once our sale finally closed, we talked with the agency’s broker and owner about the commission we instructed escrow to hold back from Keller Williams. They would promise to get back to us and resolve our concerns with how much commission we believe Keller Williams should be owed for their negligence representation of us that likely cost my wife and me several hundred thousand dollars as the market continued its downward trend from spring and summertime into the fall/​winter. The broker (Josh) would tell us on a Friday that he was empowered to discuss a reduction in the commission, but would then leave us a voicemail on Monday telling us to «take a hike» and told us just to go to mediation. What a way to treat a customer, especially a referred customer.
A few weeks later, the agency owner, Harma called me wanting to work things out. Harma spoke a good game too, but didn’t follow through getting back to us in a timely manner. As the agency owner, we would expect him to have the authority to make the final call, but apparently, he doesn’t make the final call as he continually had to go speak to «others». I would get texts from Harma that he would have a substantive response by a certain day, but then several days passed without the courtesy of a response from Harma. When I finally heard back from Harma, his text simply said he was having a hard time. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Neither Stephanie, the broker Josh, nor the owner Harma followed through with their promises and just strung my wife and me along.