REMAX DESTINY

Tamela Roche and Eithne Johnson of REMAX DESTINY were invaluable guides and advocates for us in a months-long process of emptying and selling a long-time family home in Cambridge. They provided knowledgeable, ethical, and compassionate advice at all stages of emptying, preparing, and marketing the house for sale. Among their great qualities and qualifications: * Extensive experience in residential real estate. * Excellent communication of detailed information at all times. * Willingness to take the time to answer all questions and to offer honest opinions, including recommendations that were counter to advice we received elsewhere. * Great availability, because they work as a team. Heard from them often, and always easy to contact. * Generous with their time, taking on many errands and chores for us. * Took the initiative to identify problems (such as repairs necessary for safety) and get multiple bids from contractors to do the jobs. And on the key issue of pricing the property, their approach was fact-based, honest, and strategic: they closely evaluated the property and waited for all comparable sales information before recommending a price they believed was fair and competitive. Their strategy succeeded when the final sale price exceeded the list price by hundreds of thousands of dollars. We paid a 5% commission on the sale price (could not enter this information in the pricing window, above.) Most highly recommended!

David Lilley was my agent to sell a home in Cambridge. Overall, Mr. Lilley had poor communication skills and did not represent my interests well. He did not seem to take his job seriously. Unfortunately, since he came recommended from someone I trusted, I did not realize how bad the situation was until it was too late.

I think probably the most important quality in a buyer's agent is someone who understands what the client is looking for. Eithne understood our search parameters almost immediately. She tirelessly met us for countless open houses, and managed to get advance viewings for us on a number of occasions. She thought of some clever ways for us to make our offers more attractive, as a way of dealing with the current real estate market (which is bananas, but that's another story). I was really impressed with her creativity. Also, unlike most real estate representatives I met, Eithne wasn't weaselly or fake. (I can't think of a nice way to say that, but I met several shifty agents during this process, and Eithne wasn't one of them.) Eithne did very well by us, and I'd recommend her to anyone looking to buy in the metro Boston area. I suspect she'd be a great seller's agent, too, but I can't speak to that side of things.

I asked a trusted realtor who I could use to sell my condominium in East Cambridge in the summer of 2012; she recommended Tom Sheehan of Re/Max Destiny as an experienced agent and someone well-versed in the local real estate rental market. Tom has been great; very patient, pleasant, hard-working and a pleasure to do business with. He made the transaction very easy for me -- providing lists of every document needed, advising on the price, and finding a great buyer for a property that wasn't the easiest to sell. Tom was so great, in fact, that I immediately went to him when it came time to purchase a new property.

His expertise on locating the home, strategizing the offer, and following through our purchase was priceless. He told us about a property that was soon to be on the market. With that information, he was able to get us into the property before it was officially listed, and we were able to have it under agreement immediately. Without that, we never would have been able to purchase the home. Also, the home needed extensive work, and his knowledge of home construction and renovations was very helpful. I cannot recommend his services more highly! It was a very smooth transaction and we are extremely happy in our new home. We would not be here without his help!

Steve Rankin, who is a realtor out of this office, was good (by no means great) until we decided to make an offer on a house, after which he was awful. It started with his telling us how easily our concerns regarding the house could be addressed in front of the seller's agent on more than one occasion. It went downhill from there. He didn't pass on communications from the seller's realtor or attorney in a timely manner, which cost us time and money. He violated our privacy by telling a mortgage broker he had recommended to us that we had made an offer on a house. He didn't set up a final walk through of the house before closing. He told us 3 days before closing that he couldn't be there because of a wedding. He made no attempt to find someone else to come to the closing with us. Emergencies happen, but a wedding is not an emergency. He did not resolve issues we had regarding closing time or place and left it to us to do so. This was not the first house either of us had purchased. Had we known what we were getting in for, we would have used an attorney and skipped the realtor. Even our lawyer asked us why we had used him.

IT WAS EXCELLENT. THIS WAS MY FIRST HOME PURCHASE and EITHNE REALLY WALKED ME THROUGH EVERYTHING.