Russ is a nice guy and helped us get the property onto the market with plastering and staging at the beginning of March. We thought we were off to a good start. However once the property didn't sell within 2 weeks, Russ seemed to loose interest. We found that while there was a good turn out to open homes, purchasers were not followed up. There was no information regarding thoughts on the property or price other than they liked it. We found that Russ did not seem to understand some of the subtle and not-so subtle parts of his job. We struggled to get the listing completed with all of the properties features. One of these being the number of toilets. Others were having his car parked in the entrance to the driveway (it's a back section) making the entrance feel uninviting and blocked, attempting to move most of the staging before an offer, causing a heated argument for both parties. He failed to see that these things were a problem. A not so subtle instance of Russ not understanding his job was when we were in negotiations with a potential buyer. It took multiple offer/counter offers, as is usual, but Russ gave us a clear impression he was on the buyers side and was encouraging us to take the second offer when we think the deal was done on the fourth. A condition that we disputed, he was adamant that the purchaser would not budge on when he presented it to us changed to she didn't even understand it's implications and was happy to remove it once presented to her. Vendors would like to have every confidence that their agent was working hard to negotiate the last possible dollar from the deal. We didn't have that confidence at all.
Russell Oliver
