Homes and Equity Real Estate Group

My real estate agent was Shelby Smith, the absolute WORST agent you could possibly imagine. While I feel as though I should have done my research more thoroughly before selecting a representative, that by no means excuses the behavior of this man. 1. He should've disclosed immediately the distance he lived from the home I was selling. Living close to Seattle will not help bring buyers to my home in Lakewood. 2. He should've disclosed that he works part time as a real estate agent. Often times Shelby was unavailable due to work/family/etc. I can be reasonable, however to some extent he needs to say, "I don't have the time to commit to this." 3. 32 days AFTER our home had been on the market, we finally had a sign in the front of the home. If you saw a house on the market, drove by, no sign, wouldn't your first thought be "Darn, the house has sold?" 4. We finally had an offer! It was this particular real estate agent's second time to the house and even he couldn't figure out why our home was still on the market. As such, we repeatedly (by repeatedly I mean 4 or 5 times by my husband and myself collectively) requested an estimate of our out of pocket costs at closing. He continued to insult us by explaining that is not his job, that we would find out at escrow. How can I collect the funds, if I don't know what I owe? He also hung up on my husband when he tried to ask again about the estimated closing costs. After googling we found out that real estate agents provide what's called a "seller's net sheet" which is a document that provides this information to sellers BEFORE the home is on the market. How nice is that? How convenient would that have been to know? 5. Our goal was to move out of our home into another more affordable home. We lost out on the home we wanted because he didn't take the time to come show us houses. I even asked him to stop by the house to remove the sign and key lock before the new owners took possession so they wouldn't have to live through the eyesore. He did none of these things. It's been 5 days after closing, I'm sure those are still up. They were 2 days ago when we stopped by to give the new owners the key to the security system. 6. At closing, we had pulled together just over $10,000 based on what we knew of costs. We were $6,000 short. Lovely! I could've had all that money had I have known these costs, but I didn't. It takes time to pull that kind of money together in an easy to wire fashion especially when you're selling a home because of a job loss. 7. The money came out of BOTH real estate agents' commission. I felt so bad that the buyers agent had to pay for my agent's mistake. On top of this feeling of guilt and sorrow, my agent SHELBY SMITH had the nerve to tell me, "You're welcome." After I didn't say thank you to him for taking it out of his commission. All parties involved agree that Shelby Smith is by far the worst realtor they have come across. I even found out that the buyers real estate agent had attempted to explain to Shelby what costs can be anticipated at closing and that he can tell his clients those are the costs to expect. We didn't receive this message. I stopped working with Shelby and continued to move forward with the sale at closing through the very kind woman from the title company and the buyers agent to ensure everyone received the documentation they needed to close. After the "You're welcome" call, I never took any of Shelby's calls again. 8. I did call Max Sedghinasab, he is the owner/designated broker for Homes & Equity Real Estate Group. He explained to me some of these fees and it was from this conversation I deduced a need for $10, 030. I saved a little more just be on the safe side. He was of no help and could care less that one of his agents hung up on his phone. Based on this experience as a whole I would absolutely NOT recommend Homes & Equity Real Estate Group. Find your local Windermere company or Coldwell Banker (this is where my new realtor is currently located), these are great companies to work with and have extremely knowledgeable helpful agents.