Lindsay Dryer

Executive Summary:
I had one conversation with Lindsay Dryer, during which she was extremely rude, condescending and insulting. I left the conversation feeling deflated, discouraged and disgusted. If you are searching for a positive, friendly, encouraging agent and do not have a million dollars stashed under your mattess — Lindsay Dryer is not the agent for you.
Detailed Review:
I do not come from a rich family. I moved to the US from the Caribbean 11 years ago for school. After earning an undergraduate and masters degree — both on full academic scholarship — and gaining several years of great work experience which took me to some fantastic places in Europe, Asia, and Africa, I landed my dream job here in DC a few years ago and decided to make this my home. I have saved, though hard work and sacrifice, a significant downpayment and been pre-​qualifed for a decent mortgage.
Once I made the decision to start seriously looking, I contacted City Chic after reading a few glowing reviews online and was put in touch with Lindsay. Although her voice inflections may sound positive, in only a few minutes, Lindsay managed to crush my dreams of home ownsership. She reminded me that in my budget, I would be competing with investors and «wealthy young people whose parents who gave them $ 50,000 for a downpayment» and that finding what I’m looking for «would not be easy» and she doesn’t want to make promises she can’t keep. She made it very clear that she only wants to deal with «easy» clients who were born with silver spoons in their mouths and have cash to burn. I saved that much all on my own, with no help from anyone, and she flatly refused to represent me.
After reading some other reviews about Lindsay specifically, I see that she may have been burned by disappointing past clients but Lindsay — a word of advice; find another way to get out of it that doesn’t involve telling potential clients that they are basically too poor to be your client. And since we are pointing things out… I’d like to point out that, in refusing to help me, you also refuse to help everyone I know. I might not be an easy client, but I am a young, upwardly mobile woman in my early 30s with many many friends who have started looking or will do so very soon. Just this week I’ve been asked by at least 8 people how my home search has been going and whether or not I’ve found a good realtor. Rest assured I have been very candid about my experience with you.

What can I say, Lindsay Dreyer is fantastic!
Although I did much of the grunt work myself by locating potential properties online, when it was time to put in a bid on a house in NE DC, I needed my own agent to represent me. We called Lindsay and she was a huge asset — she negotiated a great price on our behalf, and even managed to get closing help from sellers to cover some work that came up in the inspection. We ended up paying a lot less than we expected to.
I’m generally skeptical of real estate agents — I’ve had bad experiences in the past, and have often felt like they didn’t have my interests in mind. Lindsay was definitely an advocate for me – she offered great advice and genuinely cared about my concerns and worked very hard on my behalf.
I would enthusiastically recommend her to anyone looking to buy a property in the DC metro area.

I’ve debated for a while on the best way to write a review on Lindsay’s services, and I finally realized that the bottom line in terms of stars and review angle is that Lindsay was not able to follow through on the promises she made to us initially and was not able to help us find a home. This is unfortunate, because she has some great qualities that probably lead to her being the perfect realtor for some people, but not for us.
To be fair, my boyfriend and I cheap and picky. We initially contacted Lindsay from a Google ad about seeing a few row houses in D.C. When we met with her and told her that we were also interested in Northern VA real estate, she volunteered her services. She told us that she was willing to drive to VA any time and would be happy to accommodate our schedules by showing us houses day or night at our convenience. We pointed out that in our price range, nice houses were disappearing off the market within days of being listed, and she said she would work hard to make sure we had the opportunity to see these houses. She sounded like the perfect realtor!
Unfortunately, I think she probably just overextended herself. We met her quite a few times and looked at a large number of homes, even put an offer on one and were interested in offering on two others, but timing became an issue. There were houses that we had to wait for several days to see that went off the market or had multiple offers on them before we had a chance to look at them. After working with Lindsay for a few weeks, she told us that she could no longer offer us a high level of service and we should probably look for another realtor.
Some of Lindsay’s good points include her honesty, especially in this regard (I would much rather find another realtor than just receive bad service), and her really fun personality and attitude. On the other hand, scheduling wasn’t the only problem we ran into. Lindsay didn’t have a very good feel for many of the neighborhoods we were looking at (both in VA and in DC), and didn’t always follow up on listings. I asked her for help in finding properties in DC, and she responded by saying there was nothing available, though when I looked through MLS listings later I found quite a few possibilities.
Finally, as we also realized that our search in VA was frustrating and challenging, we asked Lindsay if she could help us look at a particular area in Maryland. We sent her several listings of interest from the area. She told us flat out that we weren’t going to find anything in our price range and that she wasn’t even interested in looking. After Lindsay told us to find another agent, we found one working in that area and found the perfect home for us within a week of ending our relationship with Lindsay.
I think Lindsay is probably a good choice for people who are looking to live in the chic areas of DC and have a good amount of money to spend. For those who are frugal and picky like we were, Lindsay might not always be the best choice.

I accidentally stumbled on to Lindsay’s ad on Craigslist several months back when I was casually looking for condos. I decided to contact Lindsay via email but didn’t reply back after the first email since I felt uneasy about finding someone on Craigslist. I wanted to work with someone who came with trust worthy recommendations, so naturally I went on Unilocal.I really like the reviews for Mandy Mill and decided to contact her. When I noticed Mandy was from Hounshell Real Estate, I suddenly remembered that Lindsay was also from Hounshell. I felt a little embarrassed that I didn’t noticed the two worked at the same office to begin with and to be fair, I told Mandy I would like to give Lindsay another try since I contacted her first.
With my busy schedule, I was finally able to schedule a meeting with Lindsay at her office. However, on the day of the meeting, I had an unexpected deadline and told Lindsay I would be late and I would be willing to reschedule. She said to go ahead and come on by and that she’d wait for me. I admit that I was very late and when I finally arrived at her office, she had already left and had me meet with one of her coworkers. I was fine with that and I contacted her the following day to apologize and asked if I could reschedule to meet with her. We tried setting up a meeting date but after I told her I couldn’t meet for another week, she wrote back to me stating:
«I don’t think I’m going to be the right person to help you find a place to buy. Our schedules just aren’t matching up, as I’m not available next weekend. I don’t want to be the cause of delaying your search. My current roster of clients is taking up most of my available time, and I don’t think I’d be able to provide you the level of service that you deserve.»
She then continued to recommend me a person she knew at Long & Foster… ouch!
I don’t think I did anything wrong and I certainly acted very professional with her at all times. I was very surprised at how unaccommodating she was with me. I realize I have a very hectic work schedule, but I am usually available on the weekends and it just so happens that very weekend I was not available to meet her. Also, I never gave her any indication that I was not interested in working with her nor was I in such a hurry to find a place, that waiting another week to meet was out of the question. In fact, I was in no hurry at all, as I did not want to be rushed into buying an investment like this. I can only speculate other factors that may have led to her turning me down but I never even met her and she knew very little about my needs. In this time of housing bubble burst, it’s hard to believe she’s so busy that she has to turn down clients. If that is the case, why did she put an ad on Craigslist?

My husband & I worked with Lindsay this past summer to purchase our first condo. It was a great experience & I highly recommend her if you are looking to purchase in DC. She had a great knowledge of the area and was very familiar with every condo building we looked at. She is also very easy to work with, gets back to you almost immediately, and pays attention to little details. She actually found our condo for us & we are very picky! I recommended her to a friend & he just bought his first condo through her as well & thought she was great. If you are looking for someone who is friendly, knowledgeable & straight-​forward, look no further!

I moved from Belgium to NoVA in January 2008. I’ve never had a great experience with Realtors so I was really surprised when Lindsay responded to a thread I posted on
. Her signature said she was a Realtor so I followed the links through to her site. So many realtor’s have the most ususable websites – but not Lindsay. She took the time to create a unique and modern website which shows she is serious about her profession.
Before I found a house, I needed a place to stay for a few months and Lindsay offered to go by the house to make sure it was in a safe neighborhood, etc. She did this without any guarantee I would choose her as my Realtor.
Looking for houses was a blast and after seeing just a few she got a real sense for what I was looking for. She didn’t waste my time taking me to houses that I wouldn’t like. Instead, in a matter of days we found the perfect house for my family.
The buying experience was great. Our bank said it would take 45 days to close, so she found us another lender and we closed within just a couple of weeks.
I would recommend Lindsay to anyone and am proud to call this city chic my friend!