This is a 4.5 star review. If you don't have time to read my long-winded speech, I'll sum it up by saying despite the particulars of my experience, I would work with Alison again for sure! She handled our issues with grace and humility. Alison is confident she didn't leave any money on the table, we sold our house at a profit, and we parted as friends. It means a lot to me that she still keeps in touch!
However, we did have a few hiccups that I want to detail. Alison helped my husband buy our house (before I was in the picture), and he thought she did a great job. Multiple times a year she sent cards in the mail to wish us well - Merry Christmas, anniversary of buying the home, etc. Then we had already been thinking of selling, when she sent us a letter detailing comparables and what she thought our house was worth. We called her, and she was excited to hear that all the effort invested in staying in touch paid off; we wanted her to help us sell. At our initial meeting she toured to make sure that there wasn't anything alarming that might decrease value. Then she came back and met with both me and my husband. She gave us a figure and spoke of how insane the current sellers market was - she fully expected there to be a bidding war on our house and no problem getting more than what we were asking. We did the work to get the house ready to sell based on her recommendations. She truly had every resource we needed - even a terrific handyman that doesn't overcharge. The first hiccup came however when we got papers to sign that were for less than we'd talked about. She never called, she even visited the day before to check our progress and didn't mention the change, we just get papers to sign and they're for a lower asking price than we'd agreed. I immediately reached out and her response was that she had looked at more comparables and thought our asking price was too high. We had a knee-jerk reaction! If Alison had just called and talked to us before sending us paperwork with a lower figure (or mentioned it during her visit to our house the day prior!), we would've listened. But because of the oversight, our knee-jerk reaction put our house on the market too high. But there was a second hiccup. You see, at the time the market was so busy, Alison was only listing one house per week to try to not be overwhelmed. And she was firm in those set dates. Well, we had car trouble, and had to reschedule meeting the photographer, so we didn't get photos of our house until a couple days after it was listed. Instead of waiting to list it with photos, Alison went ahead and listed it without and added them a couple days later. There were HUNDREDS of views of our listing without photos. This day and age I would not be interested in a property that had no photos, and there is no telling how many wouldn't go back and see the photos, as it's not going to be on a new listing email just because photos were added. Though I questioned whether it would delay them, I never said "no, please don't list it without photos." I wish I would have. Alison started texting about lowering the price less than 24 hours after photos were added, and continued to say we needed to lower the price. A week after it was listed, I was aggravated that she offered no other strategies. No fliers, no open house. Just lower the price. So, I called her, and I laid it all out that the reason we listed the price high was a knee-jerk reaction to their oversight in sending us paperwork for a lower price than we'd ever discussed. She humbly and sincerely apologized. She said something to the effect of that it showed her she had too many pans on the fire - and she needs to slow down. We had a pretty lengthy conversation and in the end we lowered the price by half of what she was suggesting. I was not too happy lowering the price only a week after listing, but she knew what she was doing - we quickly had a couple showings and an offer. Granted, it was not the bidding war she had gotten our hopes up about. Still, we would work with her again! Her openness and ability to humbly discuss problems truly shows her character! read more