John & Judie Hassler

Our experience with John and Judie was spectacular from the start to the finish of our contract (and even beyond). We met John at a home showing back in February of 2012. While they weren't previously listed on Angie's List, my wife and I just got a really good feeling from our initial interactions with both John and Judie and their references came back impeccable. So we began our contract in March of 2012 with them to sell our starter home and find and purchase our dream home. Who knew at that time the long and enjoyable journey we would be taking to finally find our dream home. At that point in time, the selling market was weak, the buying market was sparse in our area, my wife and my dreams were high and our budget was tight. John and Judie excitedly took the time to learn about our family, our needs and our dreams. Each and every conversation was enjoyable and informative. Together John and Judie have a wealth of knowledge and insight. They also manage a great balance of professionalism and good humor that not only made us feel like we were getting the best service, but actually made the process enjoyable. To start with, we had a conversation with them about selling or renting our house. After much discussion and research that they helped us with, we placed our house on the market. Then we started the search for our new home. The search started out with great excitement as they presented us with home after home promptly upon that home hitting the market. I'm relatively sure that they were checking each day if not multiple times a day and successfully weeded out quite a few homes for us that wouldn't meet our needs. Each home we came to, John and Judie met us in the driveway with smiles, handshakes and a great deal of interest in our two boys (under the age of 3). As soon as we entered the home, John started assessing the home with his background in construction that allowed him to quickly find strengths and weaknesses in the construction of the home. At the same time, Judie would be managing the MLS sheets and pointing out key benefits or problems to the home as well as giving us insight to how long the home was on the market and how motivated they might be to sell the house. At the same time, they helped by interacting with our children when my wife and I were engrossed in looking at the house or talking. This was essential so that my wife and I could have a little less stress while considering the biggest purchase of our life. Time after time, we would find enough downsides to the house that we ended up not choosing that house as our own and time after time as we were walking away, they would leave us with a smile, a handshake and the encouraging words of "We'll find it!", "We'll keep looking!" or "It's out there!". Those words always lifted our spirits after the disappointing viewing. This continued on for 7 months! (like I said, dry market, high hopes, tight budget) My wife and I were beginning to get worried that we would never find our dream home, but John and Judie always provided words of encouragement and NEVER seemed to be getting bored of the process or us. Each home we looked at (and we looked at an average of 8 or so a week), they met us at the driveway with the same smiles, handshakes and interest in our family. Over time our oldest son would ask when we were going to see John and Judie next, he would make sure to tell them what we did recently, and John made him a junior Realtor by having him announce our entrance into the homes. It was very cute and spoke volumes to the connection they had made with our family. After the long search, we finally happened on a home that ALMOST met our dreams. With his background in construction, we were able to have a conversation with John about purchasing the home and remodeling it to meet our needs and still stay in our budget. With his connections in the construction trade, he was able to quickly get a contractor out to the house while it was still on the market and provide us with a cursory estimate of cost. Once we got that back, we knew we could have the house we wanted, within our budget, so we moved forward with negotiations. John and Judie encouraged us to make an offer even lower than what we originally had planned on making (always a plus if the sellers take it!). At the same time, John and Judy did some more research and actually pulled the survey for the house from the county and noticed that our remodel plan was going to push our house onto a portion of our property that was an easement owned by the city. This of course would not work out. So we brought the survey back to the architect who after some time, came back and said that he couldn't think of a way to remodel the house within the constraints of the easement. Our dreams were dashed. However, once again, John and Judie came to the rescue and actually came up with a floor plan themselves that would work for the remodel and didn't have us pushing into the easement. Once again, they contacted the contractor and got yet another bid. Unfortunately this bid came in at $10,000 above the previous bid putting us out of our budget. My wife and I felt this was the end of the road for this house, but always the optimists, John and Judie recommended that we go back to the sellers with a $10,000 price reduction in light of the new bid. Amazingly, the sellers understood our predicament and agreed to the again reduced price. The sale was made! Closing was smooth and we had keys in hand ending the contract with John and Judie. However, a few things have come up since then and John and Judie have been prompt to assist us even beyond the contract. 1) The hot tub sold with the house turned out to be not functioning. John and Judie worked with us for a few months giving advice about how to get this resolved and helping to put pressure on the seller through their Realtor. After efforts made by the seller to fix the hot tub (to no avail) we finally settled on a cash settlement which John and Judie helped process for us. 2) We've had further questions regarding the remodel including what would the end value be of the house once the remodel was done. John and Judie were prompt to give us an estimate of the value of our home after the remodel thus reassuring us that we were doing the right thing. Overall, I can't say enough about this dynamic duo! I appreciate all the work they have done for our family, their patience and good humor!