To: bovik@cs.cmu.edu
Reply-to: amy+@cs.cmu.edu
Subject: realtor recommendation
Date: Mon, 04 Nov 96 14:04:19 EST
Message-ID: <23434.847134259@VARICOSE.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU>
From: Amy_Moormann_Zaremski@VARICOSE.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU

Dear Harry, 

I wanted to tell you about an excellent real estate agent. Her
name is Maureen States, and she works for Equity Real Estate in
Squirrel Hill (422-9200). We have used her to both buy and sell
a house, and were extremely happy with both experiences.  She's 
very familiar with the East End area (Squirrel Hill, Greenfield,
Shadyside,...), has over 17 years of experience, teaches real
estate classes, is willing to work past midnight to pound out
the final details of a deal, and is just generally very
enthusiastic about what she does and easy to work with. 

Seven years ago (1989), she convinced us that we could buy a
house for the same amount that we were planning to spend on
rent, and then walked us completely through the process. She
showed us lots of houses, and was extremely knowledgable about
the kinds of repairs that might be needed, how much it was
likely to cost, and who we could ask for more information. She
got us information on a special program through the city for
first-time homebuyers that got us a much lower interest rate
(8.5 vs. 10) with very little money down. And she was very good
about working with some odd timing constraints on our part (my
husband was in Switzerland at the time, which made signing
documents a bit difficult...). We ended up buying a nice old
Victorian house in Greenfield and spending the last few years
fixing it up a bit.

When it came time to sell our house this year, I called a few
different agents for CMAs (CMA = comparative market analysis --
an agent comes and tells you what they think your house is worth
based on the recent sales of comparable houses in the
neighborhood, and tells you what their strategy would be for
selling your house (open houses, advertising, how to fix up the
house to make it look more appealing...)  A CMA is a good way to
"interview" prosective agents). Maureen did by far the most
thorough CMA, and her pricing recommendation was in line with
the others we got.

We chose Maureen as our agent, and our house sold in less than 
3 weeks, at a price we are very happy with, and with relatively
little hassle. 

Throughout the process, Maureen has been extremely helpful --
she suggested some inexpensive things we could do to make the
house look better (e.g., painting the basement); she was willing
to work with some of our constraints (e.g., two dogs in the
house, which meant we were not willing to allow any other agents
to come show the house unless we or Maureen were present); and
she has given us what I feel is excellent advice on pricing the
house, wording the sales agreement, and negotiating offers. She
is willing to explain all the fine print multiple times, and is
extremely familiar with the various legal issues involved in
buying/selling a house (e.g., the new disclosure laws, dual
agency).

You're welcome to tell Maureen I recommended her, although this
is an unsolicited recommendation. If she doesn't remember me,
she will probably remember my two basset hounds :-)

-Amy M. Zaremski