This note is a testament to the real estate broker services Barry Newman provided to my daughter Tricia Lee, and to myself as a first time homebuyer's parent.
We randomly encountered Barry as we searched real estate listings on the internet. Tricia was looking for her first home and with her apartment lease expiring in 3 months. We found that Barry made good use of internet access and advertising, as his name came up on numerous occasions, so we contacted him.
I made a cold call to Barry on a Sunday afternoon, and asked if he could meet us that very same day. Tricia travels occasionally with her job, and is also in graduate school part time, so our opportunities for house hunting were limited. Though he was conducting his own open house, he promptly made an appointment with us that very afternoon at 4pm, and showed us a few townhomes in Northbrook Green.
He was always available to show us a listing. Tricia was looking for something under $300K, and Barry gave us his full attention, though we know he has sold million dollar homes as well.
He never once pressured Tricia to make an offer. We made the offers when we were comfortable. He always offered words of wisdom from the heart - be it about resale value, schools, neighborhoods, what he perceived to be good value, or an overpriced property. If we wanted to make a $228K offer on a $269K property, Barry did not try to talk us out of it. He would honor the ask ("his fiduciary responsibility to his client") and made sure the seller got our offer, and saw that a counter-offer was pursued.
In the end, Barry helped Tricia close on the purchase of a new townhouse. He negotiated a price we are convinced we could not have gotten for ourselves, and he knew of the levers that were important to the builder in making those negotiations. I have bought and sold 3 homes, so I have an idea of what Barry did for us.
The anecdotes mentioned speak to Barry as a true professional. He did his job, and he did it well.
We also have found that Barry has a team of highly competent associates whom we utilized, including a home inspector, and a mortgage broker. We really needed competent people as Tricia executed an end-of-month closing within 12 days of committing to purchase. We have learned that if Barry makes a recommendation to us, we have to seriously consider it. Even if we might not agree on a point, Barry was professional about it, and would move on or work around it.
In the end, what makes Barry special is that he is a good person, he is a fun person to do business with, he has principles and standards he upholds to, and he is committed to meeting the needs of his client. We all know brokers work for commission, but with Barry, you also know that it will take care of itself in due time, and the commision incentive does not drive any negative behaviors. We hope to utilize Barry's services again sometime in the future.