Dulcie Grabarczyk, REALTOR BHHS Towne

Dulcie Grabarczyk of BHHS represented my husband and I as buyers. We had an awful experience with her, which was unexpected as she had been recommended by a friend. The friend who recommended her, however, did not buy during the seller’s market like it is now. In any event, our experience with Dulcie was so bad that we felt compelled to warn others considering working with her in a detailed review. Initially, we thought Dulcie was great. She was very thorough in ascertaining what we were looking for in a house, and I shared with her we had a bad experience buying a house before and lost so much. When we found a house we wanted to submit an offer for, Dulcie told us it was a seller’s market and that lots of her clients were doing things like waiving home inspections or using them for informational purposes only. When I told her that we personally were not interested in doing that and would rather rent than take such a risk on a high-dollar purchase, she made comments like, well that’s fine if you want to throw your money away renting. Particularly when we had told her about our bad previous experience, I think a good agent would have been more understanding and focused on what we wanted as buyers, not on what her other clients were doing. After we submitted the offer, Dulcie initially tried to pressure us into waiving the inspection we wanted despite our prior discussions, stating that the other offers on the house had waived inspections. We confirmed we were willing to let go of the house if the sellers wouldn’t allow an inspection. Dulcie then called back and said the sellers were fine with that but wanted to pay for the termite inspection since they had a contract with a pest control company. According to Dulcie, our offer was selected based on our ability to offer an earlier closing date. Based on what Dulcie explained, we believed the agreement would still be contingent on the termite inspection revealing no termite activity or major damage — the only difference we understood from that conversation was that the seller would be paying. That turned out to be untrue as we were horrified to learn the termite inspection revealed a prior termite infestation and thousands of dollars in damage to a structural beam under the house. Because we believed the contract was contingent on no major damage or termites, we tried to cancel it and were unable to do so because Dulcie either misled us or, at minimum, failed to protect our interests. Although the sellers fixed the damage to the beam and treated the house for termites, they would not permit a structural inspection despite the damage being structural; Dulcie had failed to protect our interests. She also had a dismissive attitude about our concerns on the structure of the house, which I pointed out to her in emails that she ignored. After speaking to our attorney, we ended up having a structural inspector come out during our final walkthrough inspection and, luckily, he found the prior damage and repairs did not make the structure unsafe. During the process, Dulcie also failed to follow up with the sellers to ensure they were completing the things they agreed to do after our inspection. The night before closing, we were told the sellers did not know whether the sunroom was an addition or original when we specifically requested that information in the agreement. Dulcie never followed up on this until I noticed it missing from her email the night before closing and asked her why the information was missing. She did not explain why she was not forthcoming about this. What really hurt us was, trusting and relying on Dulcie’s experience, we signed a property inspection contingency removal agreement she drafted that contained significant mistakes or language against our interests as buyers. Most importantly, we would have been able to hold the sellers responsible for replacing a heat pump valued at thousands of dollars if she had not make the mistake of specifying only “repair” for the heat pump. Additionally, we almost did not have an opportunity to reinspect the repairs the seller completed at our walkthrough because of anti-buyer language Dulcie failed to remove from the agreement. Our original inspector quit the company he worked for, and the inspection company became so short-staffed they initially told us they couldn’t help. If the owner had not decided to come out after I spoke with him on the phone, we would have had no way to ensure the seller completed the repairs properly because of the language Dulcie used. Two inspection companies we dealt with pointed out to us what a poor job Dulcie did in protecting our interests after reviewing the agreement she drafted. Notably, we gave Dulcie several opportunities to make the situation right but she failed. She never denied her mistake but was unwilling to rebate any part of her commission. I also asked her whether she had errors and omissions insurance, and she completely ignored my email. In fact, the last email we received from her was not until after we made our closing appointment and it only mentioned the house keys. We believe that all she cared about was the $11,250 commission check coming. In my opinion and based on our buying experience with Dulcie — including her failure to focus on what we wanted, either misleading us or completely failing to protect our interests, dismissal of our concerns, careless mistakes, and failure to make things right, she should be avoided, along with BHHS as her managing broker was copied on these emails and he too did nothing to make this right. I hope this information is helpful in your search for an agent.