First, this report will not be of any interest to almost everyone. But if you own an apartment building, i hope you find this and I hope it helps you avoid the horrible experience I have had with this group of so called realtors. I am not a real estate expert but I am no country bumpkin. I own a small law firm for 20 years, publish a local community magazine and have a small portfolio of investment property which I manage and have grown for my retireent over the years. Both as a buyer, and as a seller, and as an attorney for buyers and sellers, I have dealth with countless realtors and been involved in many commercial transactions and am stil stunned at how bad my realtors are and how little they understand about how to help their own clients. They are, however, experts at helping themselves, not so surprisingly. Here is a summary, in no parricular order, of why these realtors should be avoided.
A) They solicited me to sell my building. I did not contact them. I understood what my building was worth but they tried to peressure me into selling it for 100K less than I was willing. Finally, while searching for a way to show them the door, they agreed to add 100K to the value of their proposed contract. I agreed but told them over and over again that the contract price was still marginal for me and that I would not ever consider selling for less and did not want to be bothered with offers for less than the price on our contract. REza Ghafarri is the realtor and he had several others with him who seemed like and were acting like students. No doubt, REza was conducting class which was perhaps why he tried so hard to twist my arm into a price that I knew was too low. AFter putting on a show when I finally got them to 100K higher price, they were seen by my staf exiting in the parking lot and having a high-five celebration. When I called Reza out on how embarrasing that was for me, he told me it was because he put the listing in Kevin Sin's name and they were celebrating because it was Kevin's first listing. Yea right! And did I mention that the commission is 6% and per Reza is "not negotiable".
B) I soon discoverd the reason why they were celebrating. They presented almost immediately an offer for 1.77K, just 30K short of my minimum price. Had I followed Reza's advice, I would have already sold my building for 70K less than the offer that was imminent. They also presented a ver low offer and I didn't appreciate either. I let them know that 1.8 was truly my minimum and to quit wasting my time. Having had them all put on a show to try to fool me about the value of my building being lower than it was, I did not have any reason to believe that the full minimum value would not be obtained. And meanwhile, these guys had only had the listing for a matter of weeks and could have reduced their commission to a measly 78K and got me my whole price. But they refused and after wasting many more hours of my time, finally failed to close the deal.
C) This next thing is really outrageous and probably gives me good grounds to sue them but it is easier just to ride my contract out. Instead of using either of the standard forms that everyone else uses to make an offer, they presented my counter offer on a special "in-house" form that had added provisions such as one that said if they screw up, their liability will be limited to the commission they are paid. Why would that term, affecting the relationship between me and my realtors, be included in my offer to sell my apartment building? Easy answer: It would only be their if you weren't paying attention and you had realtors who had no clue what their obligations were. There were other way inappropriate terms hidden in their "form" designed only to benefit them and which could only harm me. I was required to get the assistance of a real estate specialist who assisted me in this regard.
Notwithstanding how upset I was, Reza called me in response to my email even though I had told him I did not want any further verbal communication and I wanted a written response. In his call, he assured me I had it all wrong and that he was not calling to tell me that the improper provisions had to stay but that he'd send it to the higher ups. He called the following day and confirmed the higher ups said the provisions had to stay. Both as someone who reads his contracts and as a lawyer, that was the most insane thing I'd ever heard from a realtor. They admitted they were NOT going to present the offer for their client unless it had theese BS provisions in it designed to liit their own liability with their client. I demanded they put that in writing and would have sued them in a heartbeat but of course they didn't. Meanwhile, I was so upset I was nearly having a coronary. My attorney advised me to Order the to make the offer as I directed and said they had no choice. Really? They seemed to think so.
D) Finally, I have begged to be let out of my contract because everything thye do is upsetting and a waste of time. I have offered to enter into an agreement that they may claim a full commission if the property sells to anyone during their listing period. They don't respond. I am meanwhile unable to get a refinance thanks to these guys and am losing more and more money.
I have never had a worse experience with realtors. Now that I've taken the Marcus Millichap plunge, I've learned that many others have had horrific experiences too. But Reza Ghafarri and his students really are out to lunch when it comes to understanding that their job is to help their customer, not to fool their customer into undervaluing their property and otherwise inserting provisinos and terms into the relationship designed to help them and not help their customer
if anyone contacts me for further info, i will send you my everything you would ever need to understand why these guys are the absolute worst.
Marc
Upland,#2Author of original report
Tue, March 27, 2018
All parties involved, including Reza Ghaffari, Kevin Sin and Marcus Millichap ended up being responsive to me and performed reasonably, making my comments no longer applicable. My comments are therefore withdrawn.