CSA REAL ESTATE

David Tester at CSA was my realtor, and I couldn't have asked for a more kind, caring, and PATIENT person to handle my first home buying experience. He gave me great advice, spent HOURS looking for and at homes with me. Guided me through every step all the way through a pretty trying closing. In the end, I got a great deal on a great house, and David is still helping me coordinate contractors, etc. for some renovation work. I never felt deserted or any of the things mentioned in the previous review. However, I dealt with David Tester and never even met Charlie. David is great!

We contacted Charlie Smith because we were impressed with his standing in the GLBT community. Initially we were just looking around at what the market had to offer - we didn't plan to buy right away. Charlie took us around to several houses - all ranches, though we had specifically asked for anything but a ranch house. After 5 or 6 houses he finally got the idea and showed us the house we eventually bought. It was obvious that it was out of our price range, but we fell in love with it. We were clueless about the whole real estate process and to be honest, Charlie was no help. Once he lined us up with his suggestion of a mortgage broker - a real crook - he basically disappeared. He didn't even bother to show up for the walk-through prior to purchase - he sent a TEMP. The closing was moved multiple times, either because of the crooked mortgage broker or because of Charlie. This was all prior to the Xmas holiday. We had given up our apartment just before the holiday, based on the first of four or five closing dates, so we were homeless for nearly three weeks. Where was Charlie? On his Xmas holiday trip to Miami and Latin America. We ended up closing with NO realtor working on our behalf and not one phone call from Charlie or his office during the process. The selling realtor ended up helping far more than our own did, but Charlie still pocketed his $3000. The kicker? Just before Xmas he stopped by while we were packing our apartment (before finding out that we would be homeless for three weeks) in his new Jaguar, and thanked us for helping him purchase it. Three weeks after we moved in, we got a cheap floral arrangement from him thanking us for the business, and then he had the nerve to call to see if we had received it because we hadn't called to THANK him. Oh, and the house? It's a money pit. The inspector turned out to be another Charlie crony and a CROOK who didn't check over anything. Almost immediately, we found that there were THOUSANDS of dollars worth of repairs that needed to be done that should have been caught by the inspector.