KEVIN KLEIFGES

First off, this review is for the agent Kevin Kleifges who no longer works at RE/MAX Allegiance. Like most agents, he moves around a lot. Currently he works for Century21 Millennium. I know this because he still sends me e-mail newsletters. I listed RE/MAX Allegiance as the company name because that is who he worked for at the time of my home purchase and I'm sure that they shared the commission from the sale. I believe Real Estate reviews should focus on the agent because that is who we are in contact with. That said lets get started. We relocated from California, so I started looking for houses on the internet using realtor.com. I found a house that I liked, Kevin Kleifges was the sellers agent. On the realtor.com listing there was a link to Kevins personal website. When I followed that link, it took me to his site which is very professionally designed and organized. I set up an automatic e-mail notice of house features we liked and it sent me listings that fit our needs. After reviewing houses that we liked, I contacted Kevin to make arrangements to view them. He made arrangements to view 10 houses and we flew out to see them. He met us and drove us around for the house tours. None of the houses were a perfect fit for us. Kevin recommended we look at one that we originally crossed off our list due to location. He said that it had everything that we were looking for. When we saw the house we instantly loved it. It had everything we wanted except for the distant location from the Metro line. The house was listed for $760k which was within our budget. We told Kevin we wanted to make an offer and needed more information on comparable home sales in the area. As we drove to the airport for our return flight to California, Kevin called and said that he found out there were two current offers that the owners were reviewing and we better make an offer quickly. He said they were low offers, but didn't know how low. I felt pressured but didn't want to lose the house. So without any comparable sale figures, I said lets go with $729k, but Kevin said he recommended $739K. Kevin said other homes have sold for that much in the area and he would send me some comps when I got home. We offered $739k and the seller accepted the offer. When I returned home Kevin did send me comps, but none were in the same subdivision as ours. So I did some research on my own and found that homes in our subdivision sold in the $650-$680k range. When I confronted Kevin with this information, he explained that our home has a better view, was in better condition and remodeled more than others in our subdivision. That is true, but I feel we probably paid too much for it. I felt that Kevin didn't "go to bat" for us and negotiate a better deal. Think about it, lower price means lower commission. I've purchased two other homes before and had better experiences with the agents who handled those transactions. I wouldn't recommend Kevin Kleifges to friends or use him again.