Why Did We Choose Keller Williams?
 
         Despite our long tenure with our most recent broker, Rose and I have recently teamed up with Keller Williams Realty Consultants. Over the past several years, we've received increasing pressure to refer clients to our broker's lending and title services. Although these services have been reasonably competitive in the marketplace, they are more expensive than the providers we recommend to our clients. We try to help our clients save money, and end up doing a fair amount of negotiating on their behalf. We value our clients, as well as the good will and referrals that result from our relationships with them. In light of the pressure we were receiving to use lender and title services affiliated with our former broker, Rose and I began to search for another broker with which to align ourselves, one whose values would mesh more with ours. We are now enjoying a refreshing change of atmosphere at Keller Williams which is in harmony with our desire to keep our client's needs as our highest priority.

         We are also discovering some nice added benefits that help our sellers as well. One lender our family uses for our personal business, we frequently recommend to our buyers due to good service and usually great rates and terms. That lender also has a great loan product that applies to many of the homes we list in Wheaton. Now we are no longer restrained from promoting this alternative lender, and this could help our sellers and others in our Wheaton mailing area. For example, our lender's regular rate dipped to 5.625% in early February (2008), which is a great rate, but this loan broker's special product was even better -- 5.25%! Both rates were with zero points and involved miscellaneous lender's fees that are in line with those of other lenders. A buyer using the special program could take the higher rate and receive a lender credit of around $4,000 towards downpayment or closing help with a $300,000 loan amount! That could help some of our Wheaton and Glenmont sellers to get their homes sold! And it might help their neighbors to save a good bit as well, if they neighbor qualify to refinance using this loan program.

         Another nice added benefit of our switch to Keller Williams is that we will receive, on behalf of our seller clients, all of the inquiries that our advertising now produces (from signs, print, and internet). Many traditional brokers, including our previous broker, have agents assigned to answer the phones for incoming sign calls and ad calls. If the listing agent is not specifically asked for, the agent on the call fields any questions about the property and is assigned to handle that particular prospective purchaser. Most of the time, that agent hasn't seen the property. Real estate firms used to tour their listings, but few do anymore. At Keller Williams, Rose and I will be getting all of those calls, so now when we're hired by a seller, they'll be getting more of us, and less of a mix of agents who aren't as familiar with the property and who do not share the same special commitment we have to the owners to sell that particular property! This also holds true at Keller Williams with regard to inquiries our listings generate at the Keller Williams website. We rarely received those inquiries in the past, but now we're looking forward to responding to these personally on behalf of our sellers!

For more information, call Harold and Rose or send an email to Harold and Rose.