Susan Severson Of The Christine Lee Team=Horrible Experience

[JAX]

My wife and I recently had a very poor experience with Susan Severson of The Christine Lee Team in Jacksonville Florida. After exchanging e-mails with her about the type of home we were looking for, price range, part of town, etc, we met with her at her office on 10/29/11. I had sent her an e-mail asking to visit a collection of homes that I provided her the MLS listing numbers for that were off of her agency website. After going through a 30 minute agency presentation with her she asked us to sign an exclusive agreement to use her as our Realtor. We refused to sign such an agreement because, it was our first time going out looking at homes and she and her team had yet to prove themselves as capable so, why would we sign such an agreement? Her attitude immediately changed after this conversation but, she did agree to take us out after all. Her focus of the day must have been on short sales or, homes well out of pur proce range because, that is what we were subjected to view with her. She did not focus at all on seller listed homes that I had asked her to and instead just wanted to look at short sales. In addition, her vehicle was littered with clothing, personal trash, and a broken mirror. Not a very professional way to build your image to say the least. Finally, once our day was completed we had asked her to contact the selling agent on the home well outside of our price range and see of they would be willing to discuss a soft offer in our price range. She wouldn't do this and asked that we go through a formal loan application before doing so. I personally contacted the selling agent and found that she WAS willing to discuss the property and did discuss several options with me after all. After seeing that Susan wasn't going to be the right choice for us I sent her an e-mail thanking her for her time and informing her that we would not be moving forward with her. Her reply was unprofessional and I have saved a copy for anybody that would like to read her comments. Only after me citing her failures throughout the process and asking her not to contact me any more did she stop sending replies. I have been though the home buying process in 3 different markets and have never encountered such an unprofessional agent in my entire life. I am well aware that Christine Lee has built quite a name for herself in this community and why she has an agent of Susan's caliber is beyond me

[SusanSeverson]

I am Susan Severson, and I cannot reconcile the unfavorable comments with an experience I have had with a client (the person posting the comments chose to remain anonymous). I have had to advise some customers in the last three years that they may be better off working with another Realtor as I could not meet their needs in a satisfactory manner. I always try to do the best job for my clients, and if they have needs I feel I cannot meet, I am very straight forward with them. I would never try to push anyone to buy a home they are not 100% comfortable buying. While with the Christine Lee Team and Keller Williams, it was standard practice to ask for a "handshake on paper" from buyers. This was a NON-BINDING "agreement" that it was in the best interest of both the buyer and the Realtor to work with each other exclusively. The agreement could be terminated with a phone call or email and was completely non-binding. It was literally a "handshake on paper" which primarily outlined my duties to my buyers and stressed the importance of open communication. This type of agreement allowed me to determine which buyers were just looking, and which were ready to buy a home. Realtors spend quite a lot of time doing research for clients, and showing properties requires our time, wear & tear on our vehicles, not to mention rising gas costs, and we are not compensated until a transaction is closed.
In addition, I truly believe that any buyer working with multiple real estate agents is doing harm to themselves; they are not allowing one agent to truly understand their needs and do the best job for them. It only gets confusing to all parties involved.