Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices

This is an open letter to Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices in McDonough, GA, Larry Downer and any potential client of this company or so called realtor. In a time when you can do just about anything yourself online or via some sort of app, one would think customer service skills would be vital to the success of a business. One would also think that a company handling two properties for a client would do better by them when it came to the sale of one of those locations; however, this was not the case and two months post-closing on the property has filled this buyer with more regret than anticipated. During the entire process the seller's realtor, Larry Downer, was a horrible representative of a real estate broker/seller/agent. He was unprofessional and very lazy in his sale of the home; from a lack of investment into the property to create curb appeal and staging, to the due diligence and effort put forth to see items dealt with. His correspondences were unprofessional and “familiar” in nature, and his follow-up was severely lacking and unorganized. To top it off we were told from the very beginning there would be a home warranty. Even the day we went to look at the home, a discussion was had in the kitchen in front of the seller about pricing and warranties. Through the paperwork and entire process, we were lead to believe there would be a home warranty, yet not once did Larry inform us that seller had not purchased one. The posting on Zillow.com even says "Home Warranty Paid: Yes". At closing Larry, did not say there was no warranty, the closing agent did not say there was no warranty, the seller said nothing about there not being a warranty. When it was brought up at closing, the closing agent even said it would be mailed to us and Larry said nothing. We did not have a realtor involved from our side as buyers. Full disclosure, we knew the seller. Georgia law apparently has some rule that there must be a licensed realtor involved on both sides of a real estate transaction. As such, Larry "volunteered" to act as our agent, which it turns out essentially doubled his earnings on the sale of the home. Not a word was said about this. Furthermore, during the process, an agreement was drafted to set the price of the sale, as well as a few items that needed to be fixed prior to the sale of the home. This was not done, but fortunately for us the seller is working with us after the fact. The seller had decided not to use the Berkshire Hathaway Home Warranty due to many bad reviews and complaints about bad service. They were in the process of researching other options (we found out after all this came to light); however, the entire time we were working on buying the home, Larry did nothing. He did not warn us or suggest alternatives. He brought close to $10,000 from the sale of the home in to the real estate company. For that money, he did very little for us and repeatedly made mistakes and has caused undue stress to us and the seller from the very beginning. If you are in the market to buy/sell/or rent your home do not go to Berskshire Hathaway. They don’t care about their sellers, their buyers, or their renters. Their customer service is beyond sub-par and they hire people who really have no business in the real estate industry. We won’t go as far as to say they are lying, cheating thieves, but we might get close. We will go as far as to post this to any social media outlet that we can, file an ethics complaint with the Georgia Realtors Association, and never work with them again.