Windermere Real Estate

Lisa Garmon at Windermere was our agent. She was punctual, friendly but not too friendly, professional, helpful, kept in contact and best of all, sold our house for us in a reasonable amount of time and for a good price.

When I purchased a new home, and did my mortgage through Jack Kammer at Windermere Mortgage in Walla Walla. Dealings with him were disastrous. When we moved up the closing date, it seems he lost or overlooked the paperwork, which nearly led to me becoming homeless. He seemed unaware of the new closing date depsite everything that had been sent to him. My old house sold, my new house was ready for me to move in, but Jack wasn't getting the work done needed to close the property. Both realtors and I all had to repeatedly call him, e-mail him, etc. to shove along the process. If that was the worst that had happened, it still would have been OK, but when we were leaning on him to move along, something else occurred that will cost me dearly. It has been somewhat difficult to determine exactly what happened, but Jack missed the flood determination on the property. As the mortgage agent, part of his job to determine if the property is in a flood plain. Its not clear whether he simply failed to do this, lost the paperwork, or somehow missed it. I did not learn my new property was in a flood zone until after closing. (And yes, I should have investigated more closely as well.) After closing, Jack was notified at least a week before I was about the flood plain. But he declined to tell me. Instead, I got a letter in the mail from HomeStreet (Windermere's mortgage company) wanting to know why I didn't have flood insurance and threatening to impose it at a rate of several thousand dollars a year if I didn't act to get the insurance in place. I scrambled to try to find coverage, and learned it would be over $3,000 a year. Do that math on that -- $3,000 a years for 30 years, the life of the mortgage. That is not a small thing. HomeStreet was profoundly helpful in helping me sort it out, and get another type of insurance (catastrophic insurance) that met the requirements but didn't cost as much. Jack's bosses even covered 2 years worth of coverage. The realtors even helped out -- out of their own pockets. But personally, Jack took no responsibility. Early on, he even promised to pay for half of the house elevation study, and in the end didn't even do that. Windereme is a good company. Just be sure to avoid Jack.