Reputation and referrals matter.I invest out of state, and I’ve been burned by bad contractors before—it’s a fast way to lose money.

The only time it might make a difference is if you have a reputation of being good at what you’re proposing or a good citizen in general and then some of the requirements of the Planning Board (which in my town deals with the project and how it is structured with regards to the property) might be a little more lax.

Our agent seems incredibly stressed by it all, she's spent decades building her reputation which is now being dragged down by this guy but I don't know what she can do.  

The website 51west.properties also scores low on scam advisor ("owner is using a service to hide their identity, high number of suspicious websites on the server, registrar has a high % of spammers and fraud sites, website is (very) young, website appears to be hosted by a company with a bad reputation", all according to https://www.scamadviser.com/check-website/51west.properties...)Trust your instincts. 

I’m having issues with them as they’ve grown & only worried about their  reputation & anyway to make extra money.

Far more than most real estate acitivies and much quicker think about it.. you sell the same info over and over and get paid instantly you have no roofs to fix no tenants to manage etc etc.. you do have reputation management of course.

We have an exceptional reputation that we have worked very hard to achieve.

(Except of course for a simple permit like a water heater, where a Licensed Plumber could get one.)

Bonus points if they can refer you to reputable contractors in the area. 

All complimented with Amazon fulfillment centers, google, and more tech manufacturing jobs.The bad reputation of “Detroit” comes from OOS investors wanting sub $40,000, D class properties in poor condition, because they pencil out to 2-3% deals on paper.