We had a really amazing experience buying our first home with Leslie from Houlihan Lawrence. We trusted her completely from the start, and the she was so helpful every step of the way. Specifically: - We were living 100 miles away from where we were buying, and she was so accommodating with scheduling sometimes 7 showings in one day for us since she knew coming up to town wasn't easy for us. - We initially weren't 100% sure of the exact town we wanted to end up in, so in the beginning she was happy to show us around houses in Garrison, Cold Spring, Beacon, and the surrounding areas. She never made us feel like a nuisance or inconvenience. - She was super knowledgable - everything from "you'd want to ask an inspector about this boiler" to general town information to the specifics of the home-buying process. She also provided us with contact info for some local professional services, but was not "salesy" in doing so. All of her tips felt genuine with no pressure. - She was very patient and positive. The home we landed on was a renovation in-progress, so the process from contract to closing was a bit long and complicated. But she stayed dedicated, available, and helpful every step of the way. She went to the town several times to check on documentation, contacted sellers many times for progress updates to share, and informed us of important info we should ask about from our lawyer. She even checked in on us after closing to make sure we were settling in comfortably. All together, Leslie from Houlihan Lawrence made buying our first home much simpler and more enjoyable than we had expected and we are so grateful to her! Attentive, knowledgeable, patient, and empathetic... we highly recommend any buyers/sellers work with her. read more

We bought and sold our Cold Spring home thru Houlihan Lawrence's Kathleen Kourie. She facilitated both transactions and we purchased and sold at the prices we wanted. She knows where business and is knowledgable of the overall Hudson Valley real estate market. Thank you Kathleen. read more

A few years ago I was looking at property in Garrison and I want to thank the agents at Houlihan & Lawrence. They were very helpful taking me to the home I needed to see. The agent advised me that the homeowner was a bit crazy...ahead of time. Being cat allergic he also gave me fair warning about the catmania in the home. Surprisingly he told me 'to wait it out', should I be interested, as the $$$ would have to come down once the homeowner came to grips with the real value of the property. Good advice, I must say as that was several years ago and the property did not sell. But it was fun to see! read more

Cold shoulder from a corporate entity: Some agents from the Houlihan Lawrence chain treat their local clients like dirt on their heel. (We sold our home, barn, and 2-acre property in town, which has big Hudson River views, etc., so used the 10516/Cold Spring Office.) We'd avoid Melissa Carlton. This was just our experience---but it was realllly bad. (Another agent ultimately sold it.) Ms. Carlton aggressively sold her services, but once we signed on the dotted line, she couldn't seem to fulfill her most basic duties and promises. She neglected or demeaned us and our property (other agent finally sold the house). She was irresponsible, rude, unethical as per realtors' code, and offered barriers, not skilled professionalism, to us, other agents, and other buyers. We had to take on an agent due to disabled co-owner's hospitalizations and the other co-owner's extensive work travel for a government agency. A family who'd bought from her recommended her. However, w/her office only 1/4 mile away from our home, it just felt like she could not be bothered to make any effort to fix problems when they arose... **She entered our home without calling or knocking WITH HER HUSBAND--while female disabled co-owner was getting dressed! Scary and humiliating. She 'thought' we were gone. (She allowed other unqualified people in without supervising them.) **She or those she was supposed to supervise left multiple doors standing wide open to the forest for us to come home to long after dark and with escaped pets. **She ignored calls in a week when there were multiple offers. **She did not convey messages as her professional duties dictated, to other agents. **She often denigrated our house, which was a high value property with open 4-season views of the Hudson River, consistently saying and putting into the broker sheet that it didn't have "curb appeal" and made mistakes in her company's internal and external publications. Promises to advertise were late/underfulfilled. **Got the square footage totally wrong, making our home appear to be $100 per sq foot more expensive than it was. **Got years built for barn and house wrong (this was historic home and barn) **In these, she either carried on the denigration and/or got numbers completely wrong, to our detriment. We proofread the numbers immediately and she never bothered to get them right **She didn't put up any signage for weeks. The company had decent signs. She told us we would have to wait for new (illegible) ones, and we said no, it's May, pls post. She ignored us. **She didn't get a photographer to our property for weeks, then, only did rainy day photos.We had to supply our own photos of the broad Hudson River view she didn't find important. **The defective For Sale sign with minuscule writing she finally sent over 6 weeks late kept losing its screws and falling down, and she never sent anyone to fix it, so disabled co-owner had to walk painfully to the sign many times and fix, as did the other co-owner. The house sold after 8 months, not by Melissa Carlton. She was loud, sarcastic and deeply unprofessional in her conversations with us. And just for the piece de resistance, everyone we know gets champagne and flowers from them when they get a commission. Not us. Another agent from her firm got buyers, so HL still received a giant commission. We'd say go with Pat O Sullivan of Limited Editions, if you can. He brought in buyers who made an offer. We aren't sure what happened to them....But he is decent, local, courteous. I have no other connection to him except in passing and when he brought in local buyers with a great offer. We'd say go local, rather than someone with a big corporate office. HL is almost a monopoly due to aggressive sales tactics, and that seems in this case to have made some of them careless and take homeowners for granted in this highly sought after town and school district. NOTE: The local agent/agency we'd bought our home from 15 years earlier, had retired. We are sorry to have to report this... it really shouldn't happen here. There are other good folk. read more