LONG & FOSTER REAL ESTATE INC.

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I had probably looked at 30 different houses. I wasn't too sure exactly what I was looking for. He was incredibly patient with me. We had looked at another one in the neighborhood and then he went back and started looking. I liked the one we had looked at. But, he went to see what else was online. This one was obscurely listed. So, it didn't ever come up in a lot of listings. It is so much better than the one that I went through. He brought me into this one. He said, "This is the house you're going to like" and he was absolutely right. As soon as we drove up and looked at the house and the land, I knew right away that this was the right house for me. By then, he pretty much knew exactly what I was looking for. This was exactly the right house for me. About a year ago, he came through and we went room to room. He told me exactly what to do. Exactly, what's the best money for the value in terms of return on selling my house and also how to get the house so that it looks appealing to people walking through. He told me exactly what color to change, which rooms needed to be changed, which rooms could stay the same color. He gave me compliments on the things I had already changed and then told me what I needed to do.

This was our first time doing all of this. I knew that buying a home at that time would not give us the same kind of appreciation other's who bought 5-10 years earlier. We just wanted to live some place without a landlord and felt settled enough to buy. Ms. Lessner is professional and efficient. What she lacks is patience and sensitivity. We felt rushed and our questions brushed aside. She kept making reassurances that later turned out not to be very reassuring. And we felt that our interests were not her first priority. The buying and selling of homes at that time, 2007, was still pretty brisk and lots of confidence. $300K for a modest 1200 sq. ft, 3 BR, 1 BA house in the city seemed high to all of us but we had reassurances that prices had not dropped and given our location - near Hopkins Homewood campus - resale value would hold. I don't blame her for not seeing what so many people didn't see coming. Our house dropped in value by about a third, so I admit that our experience was colored by the external economic forces. There's lots I would do differently -- I'd make sure we had an agent who didn't just make reassuring sweeps with her hand as she tossed aside our questions, dismissing them as naive and making statements that in retrospect were really unrealistic. I did not know that once a bid is put in, that's it -- she told us on a number of occasions when we found issues with the house that we couldn't take off for this or that because we should have noticed it and accounted for it when we made the original bid. And when I wanted to go lower on that original bid, she encouraged us not to b/c she could "really tell we wanted this house." "And you want to get it, don't you?" I felt really powerless in the sheer momentum she set forth. The estimate she worked out for our monthly mortgage payment was incorrect and took us about a year to discover. We owed an extra $4,000 in property taxes at the end of the year b/c of this mistake -- the estimate she and/or the mortgage lender worked out took the tax figure from the previous owner whose house had been purchased for $130K 3 years before. And so we'd been paying about $500 too little each month. It was a lot to stomach at the end of that year. We fought many hours with the city, tried contacting Ms. Lessner but she did not claim responsibility and if she had, what could she do? I vowed then I would write a review but with two small children, it's taken me this long to do it. If you want someone who is a good listener and sensitive to emotional subtlety and attentive to concerns and questions from novices, find a different realtor. It was not a good fit. She continues to send us these annoying Holiday cards and anniversary cards and post cards telling us she's available for her services and thanking us, etc. I wrote back once with all this info and asked to be taken off her list since it just made me mad to get them. We are still getting those canned, impersonal notes. I don't think she ever read it since the automatic card-sending is probably some sort of service the agents pay for.

Selling a property in the current real estate market can be quite stressful and difficult. But Lorrie helped make the entire process a lot less painful! She was always available to quickly answer any and all of my numerous questions and even had several good ideas regarding staging and marketing. We ended up receiving multiple offers on our property within 2 days of listing and accepted an offer for full asking price.

The houses were not an easy sell and he worked very hard to sell both of them. They were both small, 1 bedroom homes and he was able to get the job done. He also did a lot of condo shopping for me as I had just had back surgery and I wasn't feeling very well. We looked at a lot of places, which was time consuming but he didn't complain. A home I was going to buy we found mold in and he worked diligently to get me out of that contract. He really worked hard for me and I appreciate every bit of it.

Peg was really a lot of help to us. She definitely gets to know the clients and meets the clients' needs. She is very professional and knowledgeable in her field. This was an all out fantastic experience.