Jane did an outstanding job for me in selling my Fremont condo, and purchasing my Bellevue (Somerset) home. She was very attentive to, and worked to understand my search critera. She is a tough negotiator, and recommended that I ask for things that I never knew were things that I wanted. For example, I had no idea that there were different types of inspection and financing contingencies, one that favors the buyer and one that favors the seller. She was also very keen about the quality of the financiers.
I had multiple offers on my condo. She knew most of the mortgage brokers listed in the offers, and contacted all of them to ascertain the financial strength of each offer. Based on this she recommended that I turn down the highest $ offer and go for another. I went against her advice, and went for the highest $. Turns out she was right--the buyer's financing was not solid, and they had to back out. Fortunately the buyer she recommended was still interested. Amazingly she talked about the situation with them earlier and they were "prepped" for the contingency--talk about prepared! Fortunately I was still able to sell my condo on time.
As for buying...after months of searching she alerted me to "the steal of the century." She learned that a view home in Bellevue was going onto the market, but wasn't officially "for sale" until 5pm that evening. We showed up at 4:45. Right at 5 we went in (the first ones). At this point we had probably seen over a 100 homes. The moment I saw this one I knew--a panoramic view of Lake Washington, downtown Seattle and downton Bellevue. Fortunately, she was prepared (AGAIN). Between the time she first contacted me, and when showed me the home, she had already typed up an offer. All I had to do was fill in the dollar amount and sign, which I managed to do just before the next set of prospective buyers arrived at 5:15. We rushed to her fax machine, and were the first offer in!
The rest is history, although there was one hiccup. The selling agent representing the home that I offered to purchase seemed pretty shady. The listing agent pulled some shenanigans (contact me if you want details) where she tried to start a bidding war. Fortunately for me Jane knew how to handle the situation with professionalism, and was able to put the strongest offer in that didn't include having the highest $ bid! I had no idea that you could do so many things in this situation without having to jack up your offer price. At the end, I will never use another agent. I don't think I will ever meet one who knew so much about buying and selling a house.
Thanks Jane!
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