The Paula McDaniel Group with Real Estate Partners Chattanooga LLC

I sold my home through Kristen Hardy and Paula McDaniel. I have not had a worse customer experience. I hired them based off of their name and because they agreed to take a lesser percentage than other firms. Big mistake that cost us $30,000. Kristen never took the time to get to know us or build any sort of a relationship therefore she was unable to advise us throughout the sales process. She asked what my fiancé and I did for work at the closing table. That is how little she tried. She didn’t even know what we did for work. She didn’t once talk to us about her philosophy or how she intended to market and drive interest to sell the home. She did not communicate with us while the house was on the market, she did not talk through any of the offers, she simply sent the highest offer and tried to rush us into accepting. She used scare tactics to try and push us into accepting when we addressed potential concerns. She also encouraged us to be dishonest and tell the buyer we would work with them on potential inspection issues when we had made it very clear we would not and the house was being sold as is. We were simply a means to a commission check. She was either incapable or unwilling to think in the mindset of what’s best for her customers. All she wanted was to make her money and be done. She chose to communicate primarily through paragraphs of text messages rather than phone calls and when we finally had enough we reached out to Paula to get out of our contract. What did Paula do? Paula called the gentleman that referred us to her immediately to make sure he wasn’t upset with her. I’m assuming so she would continue to get referrals… because when she called us later that afternoon, she didn’t ask our side of the story or what happened. She assured us that she would take over the listing and we would have a better experience. Take over the listing to us meant she would be our point of contact moving forward. That didn’t happen. She put us in a group text with Kristen, and she was done. Kristen continued to lead. We were told that our counter offer offended the buyer, that we would be sued if we didn’t sell the property, and various other communications about the buyer and their agent. Come to find out the buyer’s agent also worked for Real Estate Partners and her and Kristen are friends… as shown by them laughing, and carrying on while we were signing documents and trying to close at the title company. There was a clear conflict of interest in our relationship, and as the leader, Paula cared more about her referral source and keeping the business rather than her fiduciary responsibility to her customers. We left feeling lied to, that ethics boundaries were crossed, and that we didn’t have a representative or team that cared. As a local State Farm agency owner in our community, my business has been built on relationships, empowering customers to make informed decisions in the purchase process, and operating fairly. No business is perfect and gets it right every single time… but I am astounded by how we were treated by one of the most well known realtors and their team.

The agent who showed us the property was very responsive. When I called them, they called back right away. When I wanted to see a property, they got me quickly to see the property. They were constantly in contact by text messaging and phone calls; I really appreciated that. I felt like someone was there to help me. I would use them in the future.