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"I had a very positive experience working with Tina as my agent. She was friendly, knowledgeable, hardworking, attentive and flexible, and she made many extra efforts to ensure that I found a home that was just right for me. Thanks to her promptness, thoroughness, patience and hard work, I was able to find a great house in time for the 2010 homebuyer tax credit. Furthermore, her extensive knowledge and advice allowed me, as a first-time buyer, to ensure that the house I bought was the best possible and one that I can envision living in for many years to come. I am still finding things to love about this house! I enthusiastically recommend her, and I know that if I ever look for another home to purchase, or seek to sell mine, she will be the agent I contact first.

I was motivated to find a home rather quickly, because I wanted to take advantage of the new homebuyer tax credit. As soon as I expressed interest in purchasing a home, therefore, she immediately set up an appointment to find out what features I was looking for. Almost from the very beginning, Tina began searching for listings in the neighborhoods I liked, and with the features I wanted. She looked carefully through the databases, compiled several lists online for me to peruse, and even included a few listings which did not quite meet my specifications but which were definitely worth looking at, either for the purpose of comparison or to stretch me a little out of my comfort zone.

On the first round of visits we made, I found a house that I liked a lot. It was a short sale property, and Tina was worried that it would take some time for bank approval, so she braved the terrible post-blizzard road conditions in February 2010 and met me to put in a contract. We waited for several weeks to hear back from the bank, and in the meantime she continued to notify me of new listings and encouraged me to keep looking at other prospects. It started to seem likely that I wasn’t going to get bank approval in time for the tax credit, so we dropped that one. I am very glad that we did, because it became known later that I would most definitely have missed the deadline for the tax credit.

After several more rounds of visiting other properties, I found a few that were very nice. We discussed at length the various advantages and drawbacks of living in Baltimore City vs. living in the county, and because of this discussion I decided not to pursue my favorite, because it was in the city and the taxes were very high. Finally we visited a house in a tucked-away corner of Parkville, just inside the county line, and I fell in love almost right away.

At Tina’s suggestion, I had long since sent in a loan application to Wells Fargo, and had gotten pre-approval for an amount appropriate to the purchase price of the Parkville listing. This gave me a very good idea of how much I could offer for the house. Furthermore, she did extensive research in several areas which helped immensely: first, she looked up comparable listings and their selling price, and this helped me determine whether the seller’s asking price was fair; second, she researched the crime statistics for the neighborhood and surrounding area, to make sure I would be in a safe neighborhood; and third, she looked carefully at when the house was purchased, what improvements were made, and how the asking price had changed during the time it had been on the market, and this gave me an idea of how much room there was to negotiate with the sellers.

After several back-and-forth offers and counteroffers (Tina working very hard to maintain good relations with sellers and listing agent who were being rather difficult) we finally agreed on an offer, and my contract was ratified with only a few days to spare before the tax credit deadline! I would never have made it if not for Tina’s extra efforts during this time.

Tina’s choice of home inspector was fantastic; the man was previously a home builder, then a civil engineer, and finally had been doing home inspections for nearly 3 decades. He convinced me that this 90-year-old home was in fantastic shape, and that I was getting an amazing deal on it. Tina continued to work with me throughout the negotiation process, managing to convince the sellers to pay for over half the cost of replacing the water main line. Settlement was an absolute breeze; I had heard that this can be a tedious and difficult few hours, but I was walking out of her office 45 minutes after arrival! Tina contacted me several times after settlement to make sure that my move-in had been smooth and that everything was OK with the house.

From start to finish, then, Tina was top-notch in every way. I came away from the whole experience with the happy and relieved knowledge that I have found the best possible home for me, and I can see myself living there for quite some time. Her dedication, integrity, professionalism and hard work were quite impressive and I know that any client who works with her will be happy with her service. If I ever seek to purchase a second property, or sell the one I’m currently in, I will go straight to her for help, without a doubt!"

Jeremy B. Smith