Sarah Donnellan – Coldwell Banker

I don’t know how those folks could’ve rated Sarah one star… they must be nuts.
Sarah came highly recommended through an attorney I work with to handle my short sale. What initially seemed like a quick and easy flip turned into a nightmare for both of us. Between property damage and a misfiling of paperwork (go City of Chicago!) that led us astray, Sarah dealt with each molehill with patience and expertise. I had mentally checked out and was just done w/​dealing w/​the property… which I’m sure put a bigger burden on her shoulders and added to the homework she had to do to make the sale.
But from the second she came on, I felt a sense of relief. I trusted her from the get go. And it paid off. I highly recommend Sarah as an aggressive, smart realtor. Hopefully I’ll get the chance to use her again in the purchase of my next home!

I pondered writing this review & thought long and hard about what I was going to write. Especially with being the first person to review this realtor. But it would be an injustice to future homeowners, especially novice ones like we were to deal with a realtor who was mostly unhelpful and a cop out.
We met Sarah as a referral from another realtor that my parents had dealt with. When the 1^st realtor found out we were looking for properties in the city, she set us up with Sarah. Sarah jumped on the opportunity quickly and within the 1^st couple of weeks had a few listings sent via email. We searched through them and commented on places that we liked, neighborhoods that we liked, etc and narrowed a few down. The first time we met her physically was a showing in the Logan Square neighborhood… the house was not what we expected but of course, she tried to «sell it» to us talking it up. But based on the comments we had made about what we wanted through the other listings, this was NOT the house. She had already made a bad impression. But did I listen to my instinct… nope.
We looked throughout the summer, on and off. But with some personal issues that had gone on we took a hiatus. She was patient for a couple months then we resumed again. We really narrowed down a few places, ruled out the suburbs, focused on a couple neighborhoods. We really liked a particular house, in the Horner Park neighborhood and viewed it a couple times. The seller was soooooo motivated to sell, already having moved his family out of state, eager to join them, selling a house that he had inherited, and was already paid off by other family members. We wanted to offer a certain amount, Sarah said that low offer would offend him and she suggested a number. Based on that number, we didn’t think it was worth it. Later that week, the house sold for $ 80,000 under the list price, $ 40,000 less than the number Sarah had had wanted us to offer. WTF.
We had a couple talks with her, telling her that since this is a buyers market, we were looking for «the deal.» We were looking for the eager to sell owner in a great neighborhood and we wanted to be aggressive with our negotiations. So we were willing to increase our price range, hoping to find that owner who needed to sell ASAP. That got the fire under her a bit and we were on a roll to look at a few more properties late in the summer. But then the search would die down and we started looking through the MLS daily ourselves. There were some homes that she didn’t jump on immediately and had already gone off the market by the time we tried to get a showing. The house that I fell in love with was unfinished and with an owner who was being wishy washy with going through with the sale. I wanted to wait it out a bit seeing what the seller might do, hopefully giving into our offer. And before I could move on to look beyond this failing dealing, I wanted to know it was completely unreachable. So we asked Sarah to do some research, whether it was talking to the selling realtor to give us an idea of their intentions, or to look up the history etc. But we had to coax her into doing that. And half heartedly we looked at other properties when I mentioned about the other house. She muttered something about «that house being the death of her» when I did say that. Well mo’ fo’, if you had looked it up and told us that it was unreachable, maybe we would have let it go and could have moved on.
We had to have another talk with her at that point. It’s our first big house, we were starting a family with our first baby due in the winter and this was a big investment for us.
Ultimately we found some addresses ourselves. In the West Town/​East Humboldt Park neighborhood. It was a little out of our comfort zone, but knew we were making an investment in an up and coming neighborhood. And we fell in love with another house. A gut rehab. But we found the house through a search. We just asked her to get us a viewing. We made an offer by the end of the week.
That was the last we saw of Sarah. We dealt with her through phone and email. She did not provide us with enough info about getting a pre-​approval letter. She thought we should offer more money for the house, we ended up offering $ 10K less, which was accepted. She didn’t tell us to add certain things in our contract that the developer offered. She was supposed to look out for our best interest. So when we asked she find us a warranty (that she neglected to tell us to add to our contract) for a mere $ 360 from her $ 9600 commission check for a house WE FOUND, she copped out. She didn’t show up to our closing. We had wanted her to negotiate a couple things we found wrong with the inspection and she deferred. She didn’t even hand us the keys, had us pick them up in her office.
It was very disheartening to know that once she got her check, she vanished. She has no integrity, no professionalism. Disappointing =(