My first buying experience was a nightmare thanks to Chuck Holtom. I gave him specific but open requirements for a home, but the homes he took us to weren't great matches. I continued looking at a few other homes with agents from other brokerages, which while still not the right fit, were a lot closerl. I finally found the home I wanted on Remax's own site, and asked the listing agent to show the property. Instead Chuck showed up all ruffled and angry I didn't call him! Well, maybe you should have shown us it yourself, it is exactly what I asked for and is listed with your own broker. I almost immediately wanted to buy it, and only wanted my girlfriend to confirm it's what we were looking for. After she checked it out we signed the offer letter and provided a check. I told Chuck when I gave him the check that if he cashed it immediately it would bounce, I needed to pull money out of some investments. He assured me it didn't need to be cashed until the deal went through, and he'd tell me in advance. Two days later I'm hit with a NSF fee, and a call from Chuck screaming that the deal won't go through because the check was bad. He had put it in the night depository that first evening, completely contrary to what he told me. Instead of doing his job and fixing this, or even being a decent human and admitting he did anything wrong, he assured me that I'm incompetent, and I must drive back from Calgary immediately with a bank draft, or my offer would be thrown out. I called the listing agent and explained, he said he didn't care as long as I told him I was good for it and brought a draft with me when we finalized everything. At this point I tried to fire Chuck, and almost let the deal fall through just to make sure he didn't get his cut, but even talking with the broker it wasn't possible this late in the game. If that wasn't bad enough on it's own, Chuck is horribly sneaky and pushy about getting you to sign an exclusivity agreement (WHICH YOU SHOULD NEVER SIGN WITH ANY REALTOR, BECAUSE YOU'LL BE STUCK WITH AN IDIOT LIKE CHUCK), and he refused to cover my NSF fee, which in the scheme of things, would have cost almost nothing, but would have showed he cared even an ounce. Nope. Oh, and he sends you unsolicited junk mail every other week. DO NOT USE CHUCK HOLTOM EVER. read more

I thought I would share our experience since it is polar opposite from the previous review. My husband and I bought our first home last year near Lethbridge and Chuck ended up being our realtor. We had initially signed on with a different realtor at REMAX but were handed over to Chuck while the first realtor was on holidays. Chuck was phenomenal. As first time buyers, despite having seen several dozen homes with other realtors, we lacked the confidence in what we were doing. Chuck's matter-of-fact, business-like approach may not be appreciated by all but for us it gave us tremendous confidence in him and in the process of moving forward to make an offer on a house. Some realtors try to 'be your friend' which is fine for some but for us, something as serious as a home purchase we felt we wanted someone to take it as seriously as we did. When we are ready to upgrade from our starter home to an acerage in the future we will almost certainly be using Chuck. read more