CM Fox Real Estate - Elise Van Allen

I found Elise through Angie's List (she was with another r/e firm at the time).  I was moving upstate to take a new job and like working with a buyers agent.  I was looking for a home somewhere between Schenectady and Cobleskill and needed someone who would be comfortable exploring a large territory.  I am an experienced and organized house hunter, but needed someone with insights into the area to guide me.  Elise was a delightful, knowledgeable partner. She followed my lead as we explored houses in a multitude of areas during the worst house hunting time of the year (Dec.).  When I fell in love with a house with many issues, she was a great sounding board and coach, and patiently weathered months of negotiations with an absentee owner and her realtor and attorney.  I highly recommend Elise -- with one caveat.  If you are looking for a realtor who will make your decisions for you, who has a list of recommended inspectors, contractors, etc for you to use, Elise is not that person.  Otherwse, you'll be in fine hands.

This is the second time we have used Elise's services.  See my earlier review for the first time.  This time we found a house and made it through all of the inspections and lawyers and all of that fun stuff!  We closed and are now living in the house!  We believe that without Elise's help, we would not have purchased this perfect home.  
It isn't just the FINDING, it is the EXAMINING and INSPECTING and LOGISTICS!  The first house we tried to buy is in my earlier review.  The second house..we THOUGHT it was perfect.. structural issues were discovered during the inspection process and we had to cancel that purchase.  And then we THOUGHT we needed to build a house.  Elise was there for us thru that process.  We decided to put all on hold for three weeks while I was away for work.  Then we would make a decision.  Of course, I was Zillowing on my iPad every night and there was a house that had been in "my list" for months that had a price reduction.  We arranged for Elise to show it to us when I returned.  IT WAS PERFECT!  
Things moved quickly.  Thank goodness Elise is on the ball.  Trust me... you need a fast thinker and quick responder.  You need someone with the technical smarts to get the job done!  She is very good at negotiation.  We needed that!  And it turned out very well.  Again..with the inspections... we found more problems but had already acknowledged these issues as part of the purchase price.  This made everything easier.  No more negotiations.  We moved forward and closed in record time!
You need a buyer's agent and Elise is one of the best.  Just in case you are unsure: you don't pay for the buyer's agent.  The cost comes out of the selling agent's commission (paid by seller).  Protect yourself and sign up with Elise!
THANK YOU Elise!

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This is a follow up to a negative review I left several weeks ago, Ms. Van Allen has assured me through this site that she never got either of my inquiries and I have taken her at her word, there must have been some type of technology breakdown and I retract everything, she strikes me as professional, thorough and caring. Tom

LOOK NO FURTHER!

Elise Van Allen was -- in a word -- wonderful. We first met her last year when we had initially started looking for a home and had chosen her based on other Angie's List reviews. She totally lives up to every good review.

We first met her last year when we first began our home buying search. She spent quite a bit of time with us explaining the process and answering all our questions. We learned after sitting with our lender for a pre-qualification that we weren't ready. So, we spoke quickly with Elise and told her we'd contact her next year. She was supportive and understanding

When we did our second pre-qualification this year and found that we were indeed set to buy a house, we didn't even look around. We had had such a good experience with Elise that we immediately called her. She was always prompt, polite, honest, and professional and immediately returned our call and even remembered who we were - despite it being only one meeting almost a year ago! She even remembered details about us that showed she had truly taken a genuine interest in us as clients. I will never forget that!

As far as the entire home-buying process goes, we were first time homebuyers who had a pretty big roller coaster ride leading up to our closing. I can promise, without Elise, I don't think we would have gotten this house, which is truly our dream home. She was there every step of the way, kind and supportive, and always made us feel (despite being busy) that we were the only clients she had. Even quirky, crazy, late night questions - she answered!

Not only that, she was a wonderful advocate and confidant. There were several times that we had to negotiate items in our contract or take extra steps to correct certain things and not only did Elise have advice and help, she made sure we were comfortable before making each decision.

To echo other reviews, she is thorough, detail-oriented, conscientious, and wise in her decisions. She spends time with you initially to learn a little about you and explain the process, and guides you through each showing and points out anything she notices that gives you additional information. She is a tenacious and wonderful negotiator when making an offer on a house -- I never worried with her there! It is absolutely one of her strengths as an agent. And after an offer is accepted, she is prompt to send a timeline outlining what is expected and when, and checks in to make sure things are going OK.

As I began in this review, look no further! She is the total package when it comes to agents. While I'm super excited to be in my house, I will miss hearing from her! Elise - I wish you all the best. You were a dynamite real estate agent. :)

Elise is intelligent, gracious, cautious, punctual, diplomatic, knowledgeable, patient, technologically advanced, tenacious and our hero!
Without getting into the exact details of our situation... I can tell you that we contacted Elise based on Angie's List reviews.  She responded within the day.   She advised us about mortgage pre-approval.  By the weekend we were pre-approved and looked at our first home with Elise.  As we looked at the home, she pointed out many issues.  This speaks to her knowledge of home condition.  We had our rose-colored glasses on and she helped us to see clearly.
Elise was always available to talk (and email and text) and drove all over to show us homes.  She is very gracious and never accepted our apologies for dragging her around the area!  Instead, she made us feel welcome.
Jumping ahead to the time of making an offer... Elise knows how to negotiate!  If you are like us... you throw those rose-colored glasses back on and want to give the sellers whatever they want so that you don't lose out on your rose-colored dream house!  Elise helped us to see the power of negotiation.  But she also knew when to let us up the offer.
Once you have a contract, Elise gives very comprehensive advice for the next steps!  She knows her stuff!  You will not be disappointed.
At property inspection time... guess what?  We brought our rose-colored glasses again!  We were excited and flitting from one thing to the next.  When the serious problem came up... Elise found a chair..sat down... slowed down... and started asking questions of the expert.  I noticed this and I slowed down as well.  Time to listen and be prepared to make some hard decisions.
Elise never told us what to do.  She advised us.  She supported us.  She "talked me off the ledge" several times.  When something important had to be done, she made it very clear.   Elise gave us a valuable home-buying education!
If you need a real estate agent, you cannot go wrong with Elise as your choice.   I cannot imagine why anyone would pick another agent!  Choose our hero...Elise Van Allen!

You will not find an agent that represents your interests as honestly, professionally and tenaciously as Elise Van Allen.
Home search: Throughout our home search she was happy to setup showings we were interested in from Averill Park to Saratoga Springs. She helped us keep in mind potential areas of concern in each home we looked at and was always honest with her thoughts on how the list price compared with the comps in the area, even when the advice was to walk away! This meant we really trusted her when we did find a house that we liked AND she felt was at a good value. She never pressured us into putting an offer in and it was clear that her genuine #1 priority was that we would be very happy with the house over the long term.
Negotiation: She will tell you this is the part of the job she loves the most and it showed! We went through the offer process with Elise on 2 homes. The first being a short sale (which she had experience with) and the 2nd being the house we were able to purchase. Other agents may be uncomfortable during this phase, but Elise went to bat for us.
We feel that Elise was a crucial part of buying our home at a fair price and I wouldn?t use anyone but her in the future. Elise gets my highest recommendation.

My husband and I are in the process of trying to build our home. i was researching construction loan mortgage programs and contacted Elise to find out how the process works. Although we didn't use Elise as a realtor I greatly valued the information she gave me that led us in the right direction. She responded to my email the morning after I sent it and was so kind to spend a great deal of time on the phone with me. She gave me some great tips when looking for a mortgage and ways to find out the information we need without giving out our financial information to each bank. If we ever need a realtor in the near or far future I will definitely contact Elise again!

We r moving to Albany in couple of months & we were looking for a good real estate agent to help us in buying our house. Thank god for Angie's list and their recommendation tool we found the best real estate agent and her name is Elise Van Allen. She is a true professional in every sense of the word. Her eye for detail(which most of the real estate agents miss), her hardworking ability (she even works for you late in the night),her ethical standards, her honest nature , her humble and non- pushy sales attitude and above all her true knowledge to her work makes her the perfect person to work with. I will definitely work with her in the future & would recommend her to everybody. She is the best person for this job. Thanks for all your help Elise. Wish you best in your life.

I can't say enough about how wonderful it was to work with Elise. For over 2 years she worked with my husband and I as we looked at houses trying to determine what area and neighborhood we wanted to call home. She was always available to take my calls and offer any help or information we needed. Her responsiveness and communication is truly remarkable. As our listing agent she worked tirelessly on the sale of our home and was there for us daily right through to our closing. I would highly recommend Elise to anyone looking to buy or sell a home.

As first-time home buyer, we started to seriously looking to buy a single family home since the spring of 2011. In the beginning, we did a lot of homework to get family with the home purchase process and we thought we would not need a buyer's agent, and probably save some money since the seller would not have to pay the buyer's agent. But it turned out that for most of the cases in general, not using a buyer's agent would not save any money on the buyer's side. I looked up Angieslist for a real estate agent and Elise name came at the top of the list (with the most A scores). I read the detailed comments left by the clients of Elise and most of them were extremely satisfied with her loyalty, professionalism, and truly caring about the clients. I decided to pick up the phone and give Elise a phone interview. She was very polite and enthusiastic and assured me that I can reserve the right to fire her at any point of the process, if I am not satisfied with her work, and there will be absolutely no charge. She also provided a couple of references, whom I didn't contact.

After laying out the ground rules, she started to work on our case immediately. She didn't press us to sign the Real Estate Agent Disclosure form until about 10 days working for us. We felt that she earned our business through hard work. She always laid out our options and the PROs and CONs of different options and asked us to make an informed decision. About the lender, attorney, and inspector, she provided a list of people she had worked with before, but not forcing us to choose any one of them. I felt very comfortable working with her because we always got all the facts and made a decision on our own. She made herself available at all times, even late into the evening (e.g. we called her ~11:30pm and she answered) and on her vacation. When it comes to negotiating the price, she was a shark. She would analyze the situation of both sides and find out our strength and the seller's weakness. She was able to communicate with the seller using the most comforting gesture, while not giving up one inch of our interest. We were able to get the house at the price we liked (~ $15000 below the asking price) within 4 days negotiation.

She was very organized. She provided us a list of deadlines for the closing to make sure that we were on top of things. She even put the deadline for STAR application in our calendar, which is next February. We feel that she was building up long term work relationship with clients, rather than just trying to get the deal done and collect her money. We feel we can lay everything upfront with her, which makes us very comfortable. I would recommend her to any of my friends that look for a real estate agent.

My wife and I are in the market for a home, and we were doing a bit of pre-planning. We looked up Elise on Angie's list, and as she was rated highest, I contacted her first. Our phone conversation impressed me in that she was very honest, had a strong sense of integrity, and cared about us as opposed to the dollar signs. 

We've decided to use her to help us get a home, and will be contacting her in the future when we sell the home she helped us buy. 

I highly recommend her to any in the Albany area looking for a real estate agent. 

Elise is more than a real estate agent. She is a partner in every step of the process. In addition to being professional and super responsive she provides such a wealth of information for even the experienced. I could not more highly recommend her to you if you are buying or selling a home. She has such great knowledge of the Albany are which is a plus if you are selling in this market.

Ms. Van Allen found us the perfect house! We relocated from another state and knew nothing about neighborhoods or local pricing. Ms. Van Allen was superb. She gave us a thorough understanding of the local market, our options and local trends. She listened to our needs and represented us undauntingly during a difficult and protracted negotiation and close. Post closing she remained very much a part of our move and a welcoming force in our new city. She is very honest and very motivated. A+++