BLUM REAL ESTATE

Description of Work: I am sure that many residents of Salem, Oregon have seen the name Gladys Blum on real estate signs throughout town for 30 plus years. Naturally one would assume that presence in the market for that long constitutes success. So when I decided to sell my home I went to the Blum web site and submitted an inquiry. Since I did not recognize any of the other agents shown on her site, I specifically asked to work with her alone on my transaction. If that would be agreeable to her then to please contact me. Which Gladys did via email and we scheduled an appointment. Well that appointment was the most I dealt with Gladys throughout the transaction. Apparently her agency is set up in departments. One person deals with the listing info and marketing. Another handles all offers and transactions, and so on. This would be great and all but the "right hand must talk to the left hand" in a business model like this one. That simply does not occur. Furthermore, if you think that you are hiring Gladys Blum, you should think again and seriously consider an agent who will handle your transaction start to finish personally. Throughout this transaction I was constantly chasing them down for information and I certainly did not get the advice of a 30 year real estate veteran during my negotiation. I never got any advice on negotiating tactics or market conditions or what to do during the original negotiations. Keep in mind, I was never dealing with Gladys at that point, I was dealing with the Transaction Coordinator. In fact, the only conversation I had with Gladys during the entire negotiation was when the buyer wanted to extend closing and I wanted to counter that they would have to reimburse my costs of the extension. At that point, I actually got a call from Gladys in which she tried to talk me out of it and I wasn't sure if she was representing me or the buyer at that point. I hired Blum RE for Gladys' experience and I never reaped any benefits from it. The icing on the cake was the fact that my refrigerator was a negotiable item in the listing. When I got the call from the Transaction Coordinator that I had an offer, any negotiable items would be pertinent to the offer. No mention of the buyer wanting the refrigerator was mentioned. So when I moved I took it with me just to get a call to have to take it back. The bottom line here folks is simply this. If you think that you are hiring Gladys Blum to personally be your realtor and sell your house when you hire Blum RE, you will be sorely mistaken. She is clearly just a name and a figurehead. The communication internally and externally is the worst I have experienced in six home transactions over my adult life! If you are expecting advice and guidance throughout the transaction, you will be disappointed! Either save the money and do for sale by owner or actually hire an agent and not an "agency".

Description of Work: Listing Agent for home sale

Description of Work: Gladys Blum sold us our house. Actually, we initially hired her to facilitate a for-sale-by-owner transaction for us which fell through (after considerable negotiating and effort on our part - we were so happy to have Gladys representing us. The seller was just a strange person). Instead, we found a beautiful house which was in foreclosure. Gladys wrote up an offer for us the same day it went on the market. We got the house but still had some negotiations to make with Freddie Mac.

Description of Work: Troy Blum represented our builder Stanko Construction Homes and served as the resource person.