All Forum Posts by: K Sue Dorsett

Do not use Great Jones. After they sign you up, you will never get them on the phone again. Amazed they can even stay in business.

I have good news. It all went exactly as they said it would. No gotchas. No added fees. Closed in three weeks with the Closing Team walking us through it step by step. It couldn’t have been easier to go through closing. The walkthrough was 15 minutes of checking no one had trashed the house and we had not left junk behind. There were no additional inspections after the first evaluation and offer. Before I signed the contract I was so suspicious, I used public county real estate and tax records to track down three recent sellers to Zillow in our county and left messages asking them to call me. They all returned my calls and were very enthusiastic about their Zillow experience. Like me they had expected gothchas, but none came. One buyer had a 20 year old roof with leaks that would have made selling difficult at all, but Zillow even didn’t mention it. Fees ranged from .01% to 4.2%. If you are going to accept the Zillow offer, stop spending money on the house for cleaning and repairs! They don’t care. Also, we could have saved money we spent on an attorney to review the contract. They will not change the wording. And double check the ALTA to make sure they deduct for any recent utilities or pest contract bills you already paid that they could not see. 

Thank you. We might do it. Our concern is we had a pre sale home inspection done so we would know everything we could find about house before listing it. and there were no surprises,  just little repairs here and there, except the inspector did find some old termite galleries in the garage attic. Not active termites however. That was not known to us when Zillow made their offer. Now on the sales contract we would disclose that. So I don’t know if they would change their offer or not. Old termite damage where we live is not uncommon. 

Anyone have experience selling to Zillow? Out of curiosity, we got a Zillow quote and then after they sent their inspector to the home, they surprisingly sent an offer and a sales contract that would net us more than if we list with a realtor! Their market value was $5000-$10000 more than local realtors we interviewed would list the house for. Zillow’s  sales fee was only .1%; vs. a realtor at 5%. Their list of repairs was less than $500; whereas we have to do painting, repairs, cleaning and landscaping that will cost thousands. They offered net cash of $2000 more than the list price suggested by two realtors. Is there a catch? Because our house would have to have a bidding war, cash buyer paying $35000 - $40000 more than list price with no concessions from us and a quick closing to net what Zillow is offering.  Any thoughts?

Contractually, we have to notify our PM company (a large firm) 90 days before lease expiration if we are terminating their services.  We plan to do that next week. We already have a new local small PM company lined up to take over. The lease on one of our rentals expires in little over three months. The lease on the other rental home expires in five months. What pitfalls should we avoid as we switch PMs? Should the termination date be the day the first lease expires? Should we ask the old PM to send the two security deposits to the new PM? Can the new PM legally start advertise for new tenants before the old PMs contract terminates? We would like to place this whole transition in the new PMs hands. The alternative is to take over management of the two properties ourselves for several months, but we really prefer not to do that. Any advice?

We have properties that are only two hours away and cannot find PMs we can depend on. Happy to take our money but hate to work. I would not keep a rental property in another state. 

Will the Heroes Act expire? Don’t count on it. This is how government gains power - by enacting Emergency Laws - using a crisis as an excuse.  Instilling fear through the media helps pave the way for citizens to give up their rights and go along with more intrusive government. It always happens during crisis and wars when fear can be easily generated.   But somehow,  the “emergency” never goes away and government keeps its new powers. 

What’s worrisome is Democrats winning the Senate and White House in November. This legislation will pass then regardless of what LLs oppose. The extreme left social justice warriors are on a roll, have already captured the Democratic Party and the blue cities and states and are very hard to stop. 

Stay away!!! We have used GJ as PM on two houses for two years. Good luck getting them to answer your calls when you need to contact them. Tenants do not like their online system. It takes two months to fill a vacancy, when before it took a few days if any. They have one field rep trying to do the work of ten and who lives a hour from the area. They make so many mistakes, we spend a lot of time managing them. We are seeking advice on how to get out of our contract with them. If anyone has advice, please share.