Era Colonial Real Estate

Colonial ERA manages a rental property that I own, and I have been very pleased with their property management business. A few weeks ago, I asked to have a Colonial ERA realtor look at the rental property because I was interested in selling it. I never heard from a realtor concerning my interest in selling the property. I then contacted my insurer, which has a home buyers and sellers program. My insurer referred me to Colonial ERA and another realty company to start the process of listing my home. The other realty company promptly emailed me at the address my insurer had provided and followed up with a call. I received no email or call from Eva Keagle, the assigned Colonial ERA agent. A day or two after I had contacted my insurance company, I called and left a message for Eva Keagle. I, again, received no response. On Friday, 20 June 2014, I called Eva Keagle's office, spoke to her receptionist, and was told that Eva had left a message on my phone. I informed the receptionist that I never received a message. I left my phone # with the receptionist and was assured that Eva Keagle would contact me on Monday, 23 June 2014 with a market analysis. I received no call on Monday from Eva Keagle and called her offices on Tuesday, 24 June 2014. After I was transferred to her receptionist, the receptionist put me on a fairly long hold. The hold ended abruptly with a noise that suggested that Eva Keagle's office had hung up on me. I called a minute or two later and, again, spoke with Eva Keagle's receptionist. She told me that Eva was on another call and asked me if I could leave a message. At that point, I had lost all confidence in Eva Keagle's and Colonial ERA's ability to sell my home. I gave the receptionist my number and informed her that I had lost confidence in the business. Within a minute, I received a call back from Eva Keagle's secretary stating that she had mistyped my telephone # in whatever database or document she was using. While I would, ordinarily, have sympathy for this error, I have a difficult time having sympathy in this situation because:

1) I was a customer of Colonial ERA; and my correct contact information was in their system - Eva Keagle's secretary indicated during at least one of the calls that her office was aware of the fact that their property management section managed the rental property;

2) I had asked on more than one occasion for Colonial ERA to have a realtor contact me about selling my home;

3) My insurance company gave Colonial ERA my # and email address - Colonial could have used my email address to contact me (like the other company did) or double checked the # they entered from my insurance company records was correct;

4) I left my # with Colonial several times.

This issue causes me to question Colonial ERA's ability to follow up with prospective buyers, sell the property in a timely/professional manner, and even manage the rental property.

So far she has done a great job putting our home on the market! She is very attentive to detail and put her customer first. I highly recommend her! |

I liked that they were very friendly and knowledgeable. We had issues with our builder and they were constantly going back and forth trying to make us the priority.

In the end, we actually received our asking price so we were very happy. If there was ever anything marginal in this service, I would say that she thought our house was priced too high, and through our own analysis, we disagreed. In the end we were right and our house sold for our asking, but this isn't uncommon for any realtor. Do your research before hiring any realtor. Know your house and fix anything that needs fixing. Realize this: the realtor's job is to market your house. Your job is to sell it! There is a difference. Clean your entire house and always have it ready to show. I think part of our success was our presentation. Everything was immaculate. You'd be surprised how many houses on the market aren't ready for selling, and they take a price hit because of this!

Whether you tell them in detail what you want or not, they will go out of their way to find you a house that fits right in. It is more than just a job to them, you will feel you are part the family with them.

My husband is in the military and got orders to fort hood. After looking at costs of renting vs. buying, we decided to purchase our first home. Our lender referred us to Allan Bishop. Allan talked to us about the whole process, and started looking for homes that would suit our needs. Allan was readily available for all of our endless, sometimes repetitive, questions and concerns. This was great as we were doing everything from a different state, so it meant LOTS of phone calls. We gave Allan our needs as far as price, locations, and sq. footage, as well as things that would be nice in a home, but not necessary. Allan came back to us with a list of homes that included everything we asked for! He never tried to get us to adjust what we wanted, or our price range. We came to look at the homes he had found, and chose our home that day. Allan stayed on top of paperwork, dates, and kept us very informed of everything going on. Allan did everything he could to make buying our first home as easy as possible. We closed on our home in July, and still Allan has kept in contact with us. If we ever buy another home in his area, Allan will be getting the call!