Cathy Andre - Howard Hanna Realty

We are both 100% UNHAPPY with our Howard Hanna home-buying experience. Howard Hanna bungled our first deal ending up costing us more money and time. We felt they were concerned more about their commission than about their customers. After finding our new house, we were set to close literally one month after contract signing. We had everything lined up. We were already credit-checked & pre-approved by our bank. Down payment and house insurance in place. House inspections complete. Our bank's mortgage deal (APR, terms) was terrific but the "rate special" was a limited time offer. Full loan application had been submitted. All that was pending was the bank's appraisal. Then WITHOUT our knowledge or permission Howard Hanna hands our home inspection report directly to the bank's appraiser which HH is neither obligated nor required by law to do. The inspection report freaked out the bank's appraiser. The bank's appraiser dropped the value of the house $20,000 AFTER repairs. The bank balked and declined our loan (property value was no longer worth the loan value, even after down payment). Our loan officer confirmed they'd still give us money to buy a house - just not THAT house because of that appraisal. NOTE: For those who don't know, an APPRAISAL is different than a HOME INSPECTION. One is a cursory check to determine general sale value for the bank. The other is meant to find as many defects in the house as possible and report them to the buyer so they walk into negotiations with as much knowledge as possible. The two aren't the same nor are they for the same reason! The end result was that it cost us another $350 application fee to another bank, we lost that great mortgage rate special and relationship with that bank, and had to wait an additional 6 more weeks as our whole financing process had to be restarted. Plus our credit scores dropped as a result from having additional hard inquiries to our credit reports (which became a nuisance later as we started looking for financing to remodel/renovate parts of the house) In retrospect, here are some other "warning flags" we should have acted on. Howard Hanna (as selling agent) endorsed the use of the seller - an unlicensed individual - to do electrical remediation work on the house himself. We only wanted a few things fixed. We were going to see to the rest and requested to negotiate which ones and by whom they got fixed. This didn't happen. There was an obvious lack of communication between both buyer & seller agents. This seemed to happen a lot. We were solicited and sometimes pressured to use Howard Hanna services (i.e. finance company, escrow, insurance) or service providers personally-endorsed by the Howard Hanna agent (i.e. home inspector, mold remediator, radon remediator). After we found and used some of the top-rated service providers off Angie's List (multiple all-A reports), our own agent belittled us with snide remarks and comments about us not using her personal contacts. As if our home inspector shouldn't have been reporting all the defects he found like we hired him to do. Sorry - apparently he's protecting our interests more than you are! (And yet he made far less in commission off this deal... hmmm!) (Un)fortunately for us, we wanted the house. Otherwise, we would have dumped Howard Hanna long ago. But since both parties were so far into the deal when all these negatives starting popping up, we saw it through to the end - happy with the house, but completely dissatisfied with our home-buying experience through Howard Hanna. To add more insult to this whole experience, the final customer appreciation and congratulations shown from our Howard Hanna agent was an e-mail forwarded from the escrow office once the title transfer was complete. That's it. Neither she nor any one of her office mates apparently had the time to personally hand us the keys to our new house. No personal handshake, no happy greeting or smile, no fanfare - nothing. We picked up the keys in an envelope that was left at a totally different branch office. We were expecting neither balloons nor party favors nor champagne. But we think having an agent personally take the time to hand us the keys to our new home would probably have been the right thing to do, especially after everything we went through. Protect yourself - your dream home, your hard-earned money, and your peace of mind. Our suggestion is to stay clear of Howard Hanna. Our experience with Howard Hanna indicates that they may be gigantic but that does not mean they will provide good, competent service looking out for your best interest. In our eyes they weren't deserving of the commissions they received from this deal (more than $10,000 in this case) and that we should have looked for better customer service elsewhere. The branches involved were the Chesterland and Brecksville offices.