Long story short: There are many nicer, competent decent human beings who sell houses on Capitol Hill than Tom. Tom worked against us and made us feel bad about us & our house once an offer came in.
The worst: He inserted expenses into the closing documents without our approval or knowledge, and refused to remove them (basically forcing us to breach or sell).
My wife and I decided to sell our house after I was transferred across the country for work. Tom struck us as a little off--he say one thing about potential buyers and price, then he'd say the exact opposite--but we needed to act fast, and we figured all the "GONE!" signs around Capitol Hill must mean something good. Big mistake.
We had the nicest house on our block--fully renovated with new everything. People would knock on our door or leave notes asking to buy our house. Really. It was a block from H St. bars and restaurants, a streetcar stop and the H St. Farmer's Market. A Whole Foods was rumored to be coming less than a mile away (no longer a rumor).
Tom's listing notes for our house were gobbledygook, and nothing played out the way Tom said it would. He said it was a good idea to list in October even though a government shutdown was in the news (offers rescinded as a result). He said it would be better to sell than rent (it wasn't--the rental market there was and remains robust). He said we would get at least $50K more than our house that we did. And...
First, he made a big deal of being at our second open house himself. Big mistake. During the day, we got calls from friends, neighbors and family telling is to tell our realtor that whoever was showing the house had his head buried in his Blackberry and wasn't greeting anyone or talking to them. "That was our realtor." "Oh." Tom explained it away by saying nobody sells houses by talking to people at open houses.
(Maybe not, but he sure wasn't going to sell the house by ignoring everyone, either.)
Second, His pricing strategy was to underprice to generate interest and get the escalation clauses to kick in. He actually suggested we list our house for $1. But this contradicted his theory about the potential buyers: the one or two people looking for living in the best of what DC has to offer and who could afford to pay top dollar. Are one or two people going to trigger vigorous bidding? Answer: No, they didn't.
In fact, Tom told us that a house that sold recently for what we wanted was listed at that price because the seller would not listed for less. But Tom thought we could get more by underpricing. We should have paid attention to his other seller's approach: ignore Tom.
Third, he was mean. We had explained that we had a lot of trouble with contractors in DC (that is everyone in DC). Here is his response:
"You and [your spouse] have claimed being 'fleeced' by many vendors, contractors and service providers over the years. I have to ask Rich, have you ever considered the common denominator in all of the fleecings you've been a party to?"
Fourth, he stiffed us. Really. He had agreed to pay for cleaning our house (we left it clean when we left, but he wanted it "extra" clean). After closing, we asked him when he was going to pay us the cleaning fee as promised. He refused. Here's his answer:
"...you'll remember you were responsible for having the sump pump cleared of trash and debris. I paid out of pocket for many items outside of marketing for your house..."
He scooped a piece of paper out of the sump pump, and he never explained what the "many items outside of marketing your house" were. And:
"...every demand you've made has been met with a new scorching demand and I don't suspect that $130, or any amount, will result in your satisfaction..."
Originally, he claimed the cleaning fee was around $400, but it gradually decreased with time.
(Side note: My "demands" were for an explanation of his handyman's bill. His handyman billed us for a lot of work that wasn't done. And Tom took his side, submitting an invoice to the settlement company without telling us. We picked it out as one of the (many) errors the settlement company made. He refused to remove it, and we were stuck all the way across the country worried he was going to screw up the sale.)
Fifth, he claimed there were all sorts of "defects" uncovered during inspection, such as dampness in the basement and low water pressure because of a water company problem (that we had the water company fix before closing), but that just shows how poor his memory is, or how big a jerk he is. These were all items we disclosed and pointed at during the multitude of walk-throughs with Tom before listing, and that we asked him about because we were concerned they would affect our the house sale or price.
Tom also did not seem to grasp the sums we were dealing with. For us, $1K one way or the other was a lot of money with real implications. Tom did not seem to share that sense of value or what it takes to earn a dollar. read more