Century 21 Real Estate LLC

If there were a lower grade than "F" I would assign it to Century 21 Advantage Gold. After interviewing three real estate agents we chose Anne Rubin based on the positive recommendation of a friend. She certainly seemed competent and experienced. Big mistake. We felt it fair and reasonable to expect accurate listings, forthright information about the process, and not have to deal with an agent who seemed to be rushed, with little concern for accuracy and quality. When she arrived at our home to go over the paperwork and sign the contract, Anne began taking photos of the house exterior with a flash camera for the purpose of including the photos on the Multi Listing Service (it was after dusk and it had already become dark). We had to insist that she stop as we didn't want sub-standard photos used to represent our home (we already had professional quality photos available of the exterior but she neglected to ask us if we had photos in advance). We also had not been advised that she would be taking photos, so the interior of the house was in no condition to be photographed. When we discussed our preference to wait a day or two before listing our home on-line so we could shoot high-quality photos of the interior of our home she reluctantly agreed?but we had to insist. This was the first time we were selling a home and we wanted to do it right?we weren't comfortable doing it quick and haphazardly. She seemed focused on getting the home listed quickly even if it meant being dismissive of our concerns. Although we were uncomfortable with the way the evening began we went ahead and signed a contract for her and Century 21 Advantage Gold to list and market our home. This was a mistake on our part. We now realize that we should not have allowed ourselves to feel pushed to sign anything without a night to think about it. Before our meeting was over we told her we wanted to see how the house would be described in the listing, before it went up live on the web. A day and a half after our meeting I gave her all our photos, as promised, and waited to see the descriptive write-up that would be used on our listing. My partner also called the agent, to remind her that we wanted to see the listing before it went up. A few hours later my partner and I were stunned to see our home listed on-line with an error-filled description and a write-up that made little effort to paint a picture that would entice potential buyers. With at least eight factual errors in the detail, along with a fragmented and poorly-written description, the cumulative impact on us was that this was someone who was not giving our listing the care and attention that we felt it deserved. To us it showed a lack of care about something that was very important to us and now it was on-line without us having had the opportunity to correct it beforehand. We contacted Anne's office and she told us that the only way she could show us the write-up was to post it on the Multi Listing Service (MLS). This was a completely ridiculous explanation since she could have simply emailed a draft of the text for us to review. Everything was rush-rush with little concern for quality or accuracy. She tried to explain away the inaccuracies by blaming her assistant and then telling us we were over-reacting. She was completely dismissive of our concerns. It was one more sign that we were not on the same wavelength. In addition, although she told us the MLS had not gone to any public sites yet, we quickly found our house listed on Realtor.com. To have an inaccurate listing on a public site seemed reason enough to cancel our agreement. After a lot of anguish my partner and I decided that we didn't like the way things were going and that there was little sign that things were going to improve. We thought it would be best to cut our losses and terminate our agreement before Anne did any more work. We understood that we had signed a 6-month contract but explained to Anne that we had lost confidence in her ability to represent us and wished to cancel the contract before we got in much deeper. We asked to have the listing pulled and were given a variety of seemingly contradictory reasons about whether the listing could or could not be removed. She said she would have to confer with the senior broker and she would get back to us in regard to cancelling the contract. Although we appealed to Anne and her senior broker, Bill Lublin who is the CEO, to please release us, Century 21 Advantage Gold is refusing to cancel our contract. Less than 48 hours had transpired between the signing and our decision to end our relationship. Their contract says it cannot be cancelled for 6 months unless they do not provide the quality of service stated in their Seller's Service Pledge. We clearly feel that they have not provided quality service and that their ?Pledge? is no more than empty words on a piece of paper. I believe that most people who have contracted with a realtor to sell their home but become unhappy with the service they are receiving would not be interested in continuing the relationship. If, like us, they feel that the careless handling of their listing could negatively impact their ability to sell their home then the professional and ethical thing for the realtor to do would be to defer to the customer, particularly in a relationship as important as the one between a homeowner and their realtor. Bill Lublin clearly thinks differently and intends to hold us hostage to their policy for 6 months until we can terminate the contract. In a telephone discussion with Bill Lublin he offered to provide us with a different agent in place of Anne but also attempted to negate our concerns by characterizing them as an "over-reaction" and "of little import." He continually rationalized and re-framed every concern we addressed, going so far as to say he was not enforcing the contract but merely being ?consistent? with it. His tone throughout the conversation was arrogant and dismissive and he continually attempted to bully and intimidate us. His treatment of us only affirmed that these are not people that we want to do business with. In a follow-up email where we stated that we would consider pursuing other options to terminate the agreement he replied that "I will be fine explaining our actions to any one whose time you wish to waste." We?ve since spoken with a few real estate attorneys about our case and they were stunned to hear about the behavior and actions of this realtor. In all their years of practice they?ve never heard of such unprofessional behavior. We?ve also spoken with several other realtors. None of them could understand this type of behavior. We even contacted the Multi Listing Service directly to get clarification on the status of our listing and their representative expressed disbelief that any realtor would act in such an unprofessional way. Clearly, Century 21 Advantage Gold is willing to bully customers for their commission, regardless of whether or not they are the best match for the customer. I?m writing this so as to warn others not to make the mistakes we made. Don't ignore your gut, and never, ever sign a contract with Century 21 Advantage Gold.