Let me start off by saying that the receptionist was absolutely lovely. After that, it was all…read moredownhill.
Let me preface this that 8 years ago we had used a real estate agent from this company when we were looking for a house 8 years ago when coming from AZ to TX. We called, we sent property addresses over. We flew in, we met, we went to some 20 houses over 2 days, got qualified for a loan, and bought a house. Was quick, easy, friendly and went like every other house Id ever bought. Something between then and now has changed.
We called on a Fri afternoon and the lovely receptionist took some basic info and then we got a callback from some kind of intermediate person who took all the info like the properties we were interested in, what our current housing situation is, what we wanted to see, what we wanted to do, price points, etc. Then Fri evening we got a text setting up an apt to meet Carol the real estate agent on Sat morning. Now granted, all of the conversations we had had up to this point centered on the belief that we were going to be meeting with a real estate agent so that they would be setting up times for us to be shown the properties we were interested in. That was soon to become apparent this wasn't to be the case.
When we sat down with Carol, it quickly became apparent she had no idea what was going on, as she started asking us questions like how many bedroom house we were interested in, stated that we had a price cap of 850k, which was the price of one of the homes we were interested in, but wasn't our price cap of another that we had told the intermediary, and was talking over us when we were trying to correct her. Finally asked her point blank if she had even looked at the houses we had sent, and she said she didn't because she hadn't had a chance since she was on "her time." Then the pamphlets came out of a worn and well used gift bag, and the sales pitch started, how we'd have to sign on for 60 days, so we got up to leave. She coaxed us back begrudgingly and now quite skeptical, said it could be only for a day, but then she started telling us that no one will show us a home unless we're pre-qualified. Argued with me about it even.
Now I've bought a few properties in my day, even currently have an investment property I purchased 3 years ago, and this has NEVER been a problem. I can get qualified, not just pre-qualified, in under 24 hours as a very well qualified, asset heavy purchaser. But she just wanted to argue about it, seemingly more concerned if she was wasting her time, not listening to us, arguing with us, and trying to rope us into a contract with her company than being interested in providing a valuable and quality service to us. It felt like we were in a used car dealership than in a real estate agent office. As I told her, I dont beg people to take my money, and I was expecting a $25k-$39k service (would have been her comission) but instead I got someone who didn't do any homework, was completely misinformed, argumentative, and was sales driven instead of service driven. YMMV, but I do not recomend, as I've NEVER seen a real estate company run like this.
When we left, I called a different real estate company, sent over addresses, provided all the info, and was immediately set up to be shown the houses, as it should be, with none of the problems I ran into with Shine Real Estate.
