"The idea of buying our first house, while incredibly exciting, was also a little bit daunting. It's a big commitment, and Philadelphia can be competitive. My husband Drew had met Pat a few years before and suggested we get in touch with him. Pat is very personable, and even just after that first ..."
"The idea of buying our first house, while incredibly exciting, was also a little bit daunting. It's a big commitment, and Philadelphia can be competitive. My husband Drew had met Pat a few years before and suggested we get in touch with him. Pat is very personable, and even just after that first meeting with him, I felt more at ease. Most notably for me, it gave us a big-picture idea of "how to buy a home." I'm usually a "shop around" kind of person, but I told Drew right away that I wanted to work with Pat. Throughout the process, he helped us to evaluate our priorities and gave us room to work through our decisions. He guided us through each of the "how to buy a home" steps that we'd discussed at that first meeting. I appreciated his insight into home value and his advice on the various purchase options we considered over the course of our search (from smaller homes with full-scale reno to maxing out our budget and moving right in.) I am "pickier", so I needed to see about 50% more houses than Drew. Pat was patient even when I felt like I was being ridiculous, and he was always supportive (never judgmental). He also has a great team (shoutout to Tom and Kathleen). Tom showed us several properties as well, and Kathleen was on the ball keeping us up to date on scheduling and paperwork. We also knew he had several other clients, but felt just as much as if we were getting his personalized care. Pat has professional connections and was able to offer some referrals for things like financing, insurance, and inspections, but there was no pressure at all to "go with his guy." We did choose to do inspections with some companies they are familiar with, and we got our financing through the bank he connected us to, in all cases we were quite happy. And when we did go with our own people, he and his team still worked effectively to get everything lined up properly. Before negotiating to successfully secure "the one", Pat helped keep us on track with the other offers we considered and pursued. We did find ourselves in a couple of different situations where we had to evaluate sort of major conditions that would affect the purchase of the property. Especially in those instances, I was impressed by Pat's conduct while communicating with other agents. He clearly values honesty within his profession, and he was quick to stick up for our best interests. Drew and I would recommend Pat and his team 1,000 times over. We bought and moved into our house at the end of July. All our paperwork was super organized. They checked in to see how we were settling in. And even since then they've made sure we were up-to-date on some essential Philadelphia info (sent an email with the deadline for tax exemption, and also mailed a magnet with the Eagles season schedule.) In our internet-savvy, HGTV life, looking at real estate listings seems easy, but there is definitely no substitute for working with a professional, and we loved our experience with these guys!"
