Complaint Review: Matt Battiata - Internet California

REVIEW UPDATE November 16, 2018: Battiata Real Estate remains committed to increased customer satisfaction and has improved their business practices over the years to better serve their customers. Battiata Real Estate is truly dedicated to making sure their customers are satisfied and that any complaints which do arise are addressed promptly and fairly.

To date, Battiata Real Estate has made good faith efforts to resolve all complaints reported on Ripoff Report. Based on our experience, the member business has proven to be among the top members of the Ripoff Report Corporate Advocacy Business Remediation and Customer Satisfaction Program as a Verified Safe Business™.

Over time and since becoming a member, Battiata Real Estate has remained actively engaged and improving the way they address customer service complaints. As an active and current member of the Ripoff Report Corporate Advocacy Business Remediation and Customer Satisfaction Program we are happy to report that now more than ever Battiata Real Estate remains committed to improving customer satisfaction.

Remember, no company or individual can ever satisfy 100% of the people 100% of the time. There are no products or services that will always be perfect for everyone and even the best companies will receive complaints from time to time. However, by participating in the Corporate Advocacy Program, the member business has made a commitment to working with its customers to resolve complaints quickly and fairly whenever possible.

Please keep in mind that as a consumer you have some responsibilities as well. Success has many definitions that based on your past experiences, current situation and your perceived expectations. Success with any product or service is always based on the proper application and understanding. The fastest car will not run if you never turn the engine on. Look at how you used the product or service that was provided in relation with the instructions that you received. The Corporate Advocacy Business Remediation and Customer Satisfaction Program will help you get your voice heard but please be prepared with documentation and fair representation of your concern, also have an idea of how the company can fix your concern. Can they offer additional services, extend warranties, offer a fair refund or just get you talking with someone that can help. ..let them know and let us know!

*Any consumer not receiving satisfaction from a member of the Corporate Advocacy Program should email us at [email protected]

Ripoff Report Verified™ REVIEW:

EDitor’s UPDATE: Positive rating and recognition has been given to The Battiata Real Estate Group for its commitment to excellence in customer service.

Ripoff Report’s discussions with The Battiata Real Estate Group have uncovered an ongoing commitment by the company to total client satisfaction. This means that clients can expect that the company will work towards finding a mutually satisfactory resolution to any complaints or concerns. The Battiata Real Estate Group listens carefully to client concerns and sees them as an opportunity to learn from past mistakes and become more efficient as a company in the services offered and the support for those services.

The Battiata Real Estate Group has sold over 2,000 homes in Southern California, has 1000's of happy, satisfied customers and is respected as a market leader in residential real estate. The Battiata Real Estate Group offers it's clients more marketing, more guarantees, more experience and more results at a lower cost than any virtually any other real estate company.

Matt Battiata is the CEO & lead agent for The Battiata Real Estate Group. He was named the #1 Agent in California in 2001 (RE International), was featured in the book "Billion Dollar Agent" by Steve Kantor and has been among the top selling agents in North America since 2001, seller 200-300 homes per year. Matt trains real estate agents across the country and regularly appears on local network TV news and radio broadcasts as a real estate expert. He has been featured or quoted in The San Diego Union Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, the San Diego Daily Transcript & The San Diego Business Journal.

Ripoff Report was pleased to learn that The Battiata Real Estate Group's past and current approach to business is focused on its pledge to total commitment towards client and employee satisfaction.



The information provided in the report below is based on comments made by listing agent Matt Battiata during an onsite inspection held by a third party verification company with no biases toward Battiata Real Estate Group.

Ripoff Report Verified™ .. part of Ripoff Report Corporate Advocacy Business Remediation & Customer Satisfaction Program.A program that benefits the consumer, assures them of complete satisfaction and confidence when doing business with a member business..

Battiata Real Estate Group provides a very high level of residential real estate sales. They help their clients evaluate their property and walk them through the marketing that they offer. They utilize their marketing techniques to ensure that they market each and every home. They pride themselves on spending a lot more time and energy on marketing than any other company in the business. Even though they are a small company, they feel that the more exposure they have in the market, the higher amount they can get for a home in addition to selling it a little faster than other companies.

They describe their company as a modern, state of the art real estate company. They believe that many of the systems that other companies use are somewhat antiqued. Battiata Real Estate harnesses the power of technology as well as utilizes a team approach with how they manage clients. Matt Battiata is their one listing agent in addition to a support staff that helps handle clients. They always make sure that multiple people are available for a client whenever they have any needs, concerns, or questions. They also make themselves available to help out their peers and other real estate agents who are interested in the homes that they have listed. A ten to twelve person team helps manage every listing, and they firmly believe that this is the best way to sell hundreds of homes each year.

Their company receives most of their leads from marketing on TV, cable networks, internet, radio, newspapers etc. from both buyers and sellers. For every listing, they do high end colored flyers and high resolution pictures with a professional photographer. They also do a broker caravan where other agents can preview their properties before they show them to clients. Each listing also gets its own website dedicated specifically to that house. They try to spend as much time possible on good, detailed marketing so that people will have the necessary exposure to sell their home.

Their office has a very strict compliance policy derived from working with the California Department of Real Estate, now known as the Bureau of Real Estate. They worked closely with them to ensure that they were following all of the necessary rules and guidelines. In addition, Battiata Real Estate provided the Bureau with feedback about their work environment which included price fluctuations which made it difficult to work with lenders and do a short sale. Their feedback is helpful in letting the bureau know what they are facing and allows them to make sure they are in compliance.

They explained that one of the biggest things they took upon themselves was to urge sellers of short sales to take the highest offer, even if they wouldn’t make any equity on the property because it was underwater. Their goal is to limit the amount of loss. This results in receiving several offers on their short sales, which is often hundreds of properties. As a result, this draws a majority of the complaints their company receives. The problem comes when multiple offers are made on a short sale property and their team advises their client to accept the highest offer. Those, whose offers were not accepted, are often upset. When these situations arise, they handle those complaints by reaching out and explaining that that’s how that process works and that they are just adhering to policy by advising their client to accept the highest offer.



The Battiata Real Estate Group / Client Care

When following up with clients, their office has a standard practice that they follow. First, they follow up with a client before their house is even up on the market. Then, they follow up again while it’s on the market, and then one last time after the house has sold. What they like to do when following up with a client is explain to them what it takes to sell a house. They understand what a huge investment a home is to someone and they want to ensure that they get as much possible for their investment. Their intention is not just to sell it quickly, but sell it for as much as they can net. They feel that, with the right system, they can get someone more for their home.

During the entire process, Battiata Real Estate keeps in contact with clients weekly, they send them samples of actual copies of the advertisements that are being done on their home and let them know when they will be live. They make it a priority to actively keep their clients informed weekly as to what they are doing to sell their house. In addition, they request feedback from other agents that have seen the property and pass that along to the client and then make suggestions to see if that will help the house sell faster. After the sale, they make themselves available to answer any questions the client may have to ensure the client understands everything that took place during the process. Overall, their office follows up with clients before, during, and after a sale.



The Battiata Real Estate Group / Resolving Client Issues

During the onsite interview, Matt Battiata was asked to describe a specific situation in which a client was not satisfied with the level of service they received:

"We had a situation where a person made a strong offer on a person’s property; a buyer makes a stronger offer on a seller’s property. People tend to fall in love with houses, it’s an emotional thing when they walk in and say 'I love this house, I don’t care whatever I have to do to get this house.' We explain to them, you know this is wrong with the house, there may be a leak that was fixed a while ago, we want to disclose as much as possible upfront so the buyer knows that everything it okay. We don’t want them to down the road, get into escrow and find something they don’t like and decide they don’t want the house for whatever reason. So there has been one or two situations where maybe there was something wrong with the roof and the buyer was so excited in the beginning, even though there was full disclosure, they said, 'We don’t care we want this house, we will fix whatever issues might be wrong.' Then, as you move on and things start moving they realize what some things may cost to fix and they experience buyer’s remorse. Their initial excitement about the house fades and they decide that they don’t want a house that will require additional expenses for repairs or remodeling. This type of situation personally upsets the seller because it is a very serious transaction for them. So sometimes we do have a seller that may get upset because of that outcome, but we always tell them that we have to give the prospective buyer full disclosure up front so they know what they are getting into, and sometimes people do change their minds. With our marketing we quickly get additional offers on the property, or maybe we already had multiple offers on the property before, so we quickly reach out and revisit those offers. After, things usually turn around and the sale closes and everyone is eventually happy, but sometimes it can be stressful on the seller.”


Customer Service Improvements

Mr. Battiata was asked about complaints made where clients felt as though they had been misled or were advised about things they did not end up benefitting from. He explained, “We try to provide as much transparency up front so that they understand the different things that can happen. Sometimes, when you have a buyer that has buyer’s remorse, we may be very excited when we get an offer right away on a property. It may be a really strong offer and things are looking really good, but sometimes when a buyer changes their mind and they end up not purchasing the property, it tends to knock the sellers morale down a little bit. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it hurts. There are just some things you can’t control, so they may be a little bit upset about that, but in the end once the deal closes and everyone’s happy, everything is great. We have hundreds and hundreds of positive five star testimonials, I mean hundreds. I would say that providing as much transparency so that they understand what can happen, whether it’s a short sale or a traditional sale, is the most important thing that we can do.”

Since complaints were made on Ripoff Report, Battiata Real Estate Group has made some changes to ensure that their clients are receiving the best customer service experience possible. The biggest change they have made is to be more proactive and transparent with their peers and customers so that they understand the process that happens with selling a house. Whether they are dealing with a non-traditional sale with equity or a short sale, they make sure to explain what is happening with the transaction and within the real estate market. In addition, they make sure to provide full transparency as much as they can to clients and other real estate agents in order to ensure everyone is on the same page.

In addition, Mr. Battiata was asked how, as a leader within his company, he advises his employees to “do whatever it takes” to make the client happy per the request of Ripoff Report:

"Well, even though this is a small company, we do sell hundreds of homes a year. The first thing we do with each and every client is put ourselves in their shoes. We know that there is money involved and we know that there is a certain amount of stress involved with moving and selling a home. So we really put ourselves in their shoes and we are extremely empathetic towards the seller’s situation and often times we are sympathetic to their situation, because we have been there ourselves. We have been there through the stress of packing up boxes and hoping that the buyer is going to come through and perform. We take it upon ourselves to make sure that the buyer is getting financing and we have to be in constant contact with their mortgage company so that we can protect our seller if things start to look different than anticipated. We try to look out for their best interest and, at that point, we make a recommendation. Our recommendation is this, we tell them to either stay in the transaction because there are so many positive aspects to it, or if we just feel it’s a dead end road, we tell them we don’t want you wasting your time anymore, let’s go back out on the market or let’s go talk to other people that made other offers on the property. That’s the most important thing that we have done for our client.”

He went on to explain, “I don’t believe that we need to change any internal processes, because we are constantly improving. Ever since the beginning of the company we have had this continuous improvement idea that we always wanted to get better and better. What really needs to be monitored is compliancy; we want to make sure that the seller is not exposing themselves to any potential issues in the future. We are experts at deterring and finding issues that come up and might turn into a sticky situation later. Having done a couple thousand transactions, we have the experience where we can look into situations and alert our client about potential issues that could arise. There are things that clients don’t even know about their own homes. They don’t know whether there is a lien on the property sometimes. They’re shocked, they forget they had an insurance claim, they flooded the kitchen five years ago and they forget. We cross check the information that we get from our client with public records and other records that would show us these potential hidden issues, and then we immediately tackle them and bring them to their attention so when they close that transaction, they can go to bed at night and know that they completely disclosed everything about the house.”

Battiata Real Estate Group is glad to be a part of Ripoff Reports Corporate Advocacy Business Remediation and Customer Satisfaction Program. They believe it is an opportunity to level the playing field and determine how the situation arose. They appreciate that it protects their clients and allows them to be comfortable while working with their company by keeping them informed. They want their clients to know that they are being taken care of, their house is being heavily marketed, and they are being accurately consulted by experts that have done over two thousand transactions and have seen an array of situations that can arise.


The Battiata Real Estate Group / Statements from the owner.

"My name is Matt Battiata and I am the owner of The Battiata Real Estate Group. I have gone through the effort to address the reports filed on this website because I do not want anyone to base their opinion of my company on fake reviews posted by unscrupulous competitors. The reality is that because we sell a lot of homes and because we are relatively high profile due to the marketing that we do, we have become a target for some of our competitors.

As a Southern California business owner for over 15 years, I take great pride in my company's business ethics and reputation. If you want to get a true account of how we treat our customers and do business, go to the < a href="http://battiata.com/testimonials/“ target=“_blank”>testimonial page of our website, where you can read 100's of testimonials from actual clients, or read our reviews on Google Reviews, CitySearch, InsiderPages etc.

You are also welcome to call my office directly at 760-930-9898 and we will gladly give you a list of previous clients who you can contact in order to get a first hand account of their experience with The Battiata Real Estate Group.”

"You should hire us for the same reason that hundreds of sellers use us year in and year out. They know that they can depend on us to get them the most money, in the shortest amount of time, with the fewest hassles and the least amount of risk.

Our No Risk or Obligation Home Marketing system offers benefits that the ordinary agent does not. Our program offers flexible commissions to put more money in your pocket, a client reward program when both buying and selling that actually rebates cash back to you, a cancel anytime policy, and more marketing power than any other agent in Orange County, San Diego or the Inland Empire. Not surpisingly, our listings sell for 2.4% more and in about 40% less time than the average agent. What’s 2.4% of your home’s value?

Every year we help hundreds of people buy and sell. The average agent handles around five sales a year. When hiring anyone to perform a job for you, experience should weigh heavily in that decision. Who really wants to be the surgeon's first patient?

Let's examine one of our program benefits; we allow you to cancel the listing at anytime. Most agents will not give the consumer this right. You might ask yourself why agents need to "lock you up" for four to six months. Why would they be afraid to give you the right to cancel? Our philosophy is that we would rather strive to earn your business every day. We are confident that we can provide a superior level of service and care. If we don't, we don't deserve your business. It is that simple. See our marketing page for more information on our listing program.”


Battiata Real Estate Group’s Marketing Plan

"The exposure your home gets while listed with us is second to none. No other agent in Orange County, San Diego or the Inland Empire advertises their website via TV (the most effective type of advertising) as much as we do. We currently advertise on all the major networks in Southern California (NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, CW) as well as many different cable channels (MSNBC, FOX, CNN, HLN etc). These prominent ads create a high volume of contact both from buyers and sellers. Additionally, our unique "Trade Up" program dramatically broadens the spectrum of buyers we can sell your home to and alleviates the problem of having to accept a contingent offer. Our signs throughout San Diego connect us with buyers in all price ranges and areas. Our ads and signs also reference our website, resulting in additional contact. Here buyers can view our "featured homes" in addition to shopping the broader market. Our presence on Realtor.com insures maximum property exposure to buyers throughout the country, as well as the dozen or so other websites we own. Professional photography and video also increase the attention we attract to our homes. Additionally, we do mailings in excess of 1,000,000 per year prospecting to potential clients. Another important link is our marketing to the agent community. Remember, there are over 50,000 agents we want to think of us first when preparing to show properties to their buyers.”

Guaranteed Sale Program

"Once you are out of the first time buyer price range, everyone is faced with the dilemma of whether to buy first or sell first. . Either way is tricky, because you could end up owning 2 homes or none at all. In addition, most sellers will not take a contingent offer. Our Guaranteed Sale Program solves this problem. We guarantee your home sold, in under 60 days, or we’ll buy it ourselves. That way our clients can go out and shop for their next home without worrying about whether their home will sell or not. Call for details on this exciting program.”


The Battiata Real Estate Group Customer Service Policy

The Battiata Real Estate Group's policy is to give all of their clients a Cancelation Guarantee that allows them to cancel without penalty if they are ever dissatisfied, and to always contact all customers to gather valuable feedback so that they can continue to adapt and deliver the best customer service possible. The Battiata Real Estate Group is willing to go beyond the call of good customer service and do what it takes to make things right with their customers.

"The Battiata Real Estate Group gives all of our customers a Cancelation Guarantee that allows them to cancel at anytime with absolutely no penalty. This is virtually unheard of in the real estate industry. Most agents lock their clients into longterm contracts that the client cannot cancel, regardless of how dissatisfied they may be.”

In summary, after our review, Ripoff Report is convinced that The Battiata Real Estate Group is committed to quality delivery of services resulting in total client satisfaction.

Read more about why consumers should feel confident when doing business with a member of Rip-off Report's Corporate Advocacy Business Remediation & Customer Satisfaction Program. Yes, it’s a long name for a program that does a lot for both consumers and businesses alike.

Read about Ripoff Report Corporate Advocacy Business Remediation & Customer Satisfaction Program, a program that benefits the consumer, assures them of complete satisfaction and confidence when doing business with a member business. this program works.

As a matter of policy, when a business becomes a member of the Corporate Advocacy Program they agree to allow Ripoff Report to contact every client who filed a complaint so they can make things right with them. In order to confirm that the complaints were resolved, Ripoff Report is copied on all responses so we can insure that the member business did right by their customer.

NOW TO THE ORIGINAL REPORT THAT WAS FILED

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