Frank Macdonald Real Estate

Frank was referred to us by some friends who were also using his services for their house hunt.  Over the course of the 10 years I've lived in Boston, I've dealt with a wide range of real estate agents from renting several apartments, buying/selling a condo in Beacon Hill as well as a 2+ year house search in the Brookline/Newton area.  As a result, I was probably a little jaded as to
the value-add of these people who take a pretty large commission from a transaction.  With that said, Frank has done a LOT to restore their collective reputation (at least in my mind...)  From start to finish, he made the process as painless as possible and was extremely patient with us, which was very appreciated as we hemmed and hawed about which town to focus on (Brookline
or Newton) as well as our level of ?seriousness? over the course of our 2-year search.
There are several factors that I really appreciated in Frank:  1)  Proactive, but not pushy: Frank had an intuitive sense of our criteria (older, colonial-style houses in the Brookline/Newton area)-- he conveyed a sense of urgency when he thought there would be a lot of interest in a new listing in our strike zone and knew when it would be in our interest to play it cool and/or not rush into something.  2) "Handy":  Frank has a lot of experience doing various projects around the house (painting/renovation/floors, etc) and I found his counsel extremely valuable as we looked at several houses that would have required a lot of renovation post-close.  His advice about what was/was not doable ($ and construction-wise) helped us avoid two situations that looked tempting
from a price perspective, but the cost and pain of renovations would be been too much for our family (2 kids under 2) to handle.  3)  Negotiation:  When we finally knew which house we wanted to buy, Frank guided us through the bidding/negotiation process.  He had established a good but firm dialogue with the sellers' brokers and with a little bit of creativity, we were able to agree on a price that was $50k less than a bid that had been rejected by the sellers just weeks earlier by another prospective buyer (this was told
to me at the closing by the sellers' brokers).  
On move-in day, Frank stopped by and during the course of a quick house tour, he noticed that a screen in one of the windows
had a tear.  It was so important for him for us to have the ?perfect? house that he took the screen, got it repaired for
us and brought it back.  It?s the little things like this that made us realize we had the perfect agent.   We recommend him without any reservations whatsoever.