Verbode

I now have a lot more to go on than when I first met with @VerbodeGroup, and I’m giving an enthusiastic five stars. We sold my old home and bough out new home with Sarah, and I can’t imagine it any other way. Full disclosure, we really came to love Sarah throughout this process and consider her a friend now. But this review is honest and truthful, friend or no.
Sarah is super high-​tech in her approach to real estate. She uses very talented photographers to shoot, and then a state-​of-​the art photo tour website to market your house. She uses digital marketing software to run reports to show you where your leads are coming from (Facebook, Twitter, Trulia, etc) and these come to you once a week so you can decide where to focus your efforts. She decided it was worthwhile to spend some money on Trulia so she bought my whole zip code for a month to get it featured there. Sarah also utilizes a service that sends text messages to you with times that someone has requested to see your house, which you then approve or deny via text, which cut the number of calls dramatically. Finally, and I think most importantly, 99% of the forms we signed through all steps of both buying and selling were electronic. I saved so much money in ink and paper and Fed Ex trips, etc. Smart and green indeed.
My old house was only on the market for a month or so before we had an offer on it, which is pretty fantastic. That offer fell through because the buyer got cold feet, and it was a little set back, but Sarah helped me stay focused, even when I asked her if she thought we should lower the price of the house. She insisted that, based on the comps, my house was worth list price. (I’m sure it would have been easier for her to lower the price and move it more quickly, I’ve read Freakonomics). But she guided me and we ended up getting a second offer at full list price. All in, including the two months it wasn’t being shown (first and second contracts), we sold my house in four months, at full list price, and I made a fair amount of money in the deal, considering I’d only lived in the house for five years during a down market.
We also bought our new house with Sarah, and she was just as wonderful at that. She was patient with us while we figured out what we wanted, both individually and as a couple.
A few times she stepped in to make sure we could see the forest for the trees, for example:
Me: I love this house
Mr K: Me too
Sarah: Do you love the house or do you love this creative person’s decorating of the house. Do you like the house or the stuff in the house? Would you love it this much with your stuff inside the house?
Things like that were most appreciated. Again, easier for her if we fall in love with the first house we see, make an offer and move on. But she made sure we were thinking about all the aspects and buying a house we would both love. When we finally found it, she did everything within her power to make sure it was ours.
She walked us through every step of the process, including a lot of hand-​holding when it seemed like the house may have been slightly out of our reach. She explained things to us carefully, honestly and in a way we could easily understand. She told us it would work out exactly as it should, and she helped us make that statement true.
In the end, we were actually sad it was over. Now that we’re finally finished with the process, we rarely get to see Sarah and we miss her! If that’s not the mark of a wonderful experience with a realtor, I’m not sure what is.

Smart.Urban.Green