It is with great pleasure that we can give Barbara Reaume’s real estate services our highest recommendation.
We are a recently married couple, and approximately one year before we were in a position to purchase a home, we started to take a look at properties around the Santa Barbara area. Though we were very far away from considering a purchase, we entertained the idea of contacting a real estate professional to help us get our feet wet.
We contacted Barbara after she came highly recommended from a co-worker. Though we took great pains to make sure that she was fully informed that we were only casually looking and that it could be at least a year if not longer before we could purchase a home, Barbara immediately started to send us listings and arrange showings so that we could get a feel for our home buying possibilities. We found that this period of ‘just looking’ was invaluable when we started our home search in earnest. Not only that, during this time Barbara was able to get a good feel for our needs and wants even before we had fully settled on them. She never pushed us, you could tell she loved her job, she just really wanted us in a home we were happy with. She had unbelievable patience as we changed our minds back and forth between condo and home, city to city, price ranges, etc. we felt bad for wasting her time, she wasn’t bothered but encouraged us to find what was right for us.
During our search we got a first-hand understanding for the volatility of the real estate market. Throughout the several months of our search, Barbara put up with our various (and usually last minute!) desires to see properties from places as far-ranging as Carpinteria to Goleta. Whenever we were interested in a property online or from one of Barbara’s many emailed listings, Barbara always promptly arranged a showing for us. During our many showings, Barbara used her knowledge of the real estate market as well as that of our specific needs to give us a frank and honest opinion of each particular property. In one case, we were convinced that we had fallen in love with a certain house. During the offer process we started to read the inspection reports and found various problems with the property. We became slightly hesitant, but we were ready to sign an offer because we put our hearts before our heads. Barbara then highly recommended us against putting an offer on the property. We followed her advice and could not have been happier - there were so many problems with the property that in the end it would have been a financial and emotionally nightmare had we gone ahead with the offer.
Several months and several showing later we had decided that for work and family reasons, we should start looking for properties in Ventura; some 30 miles away from Santa Barbara. We were very concerned that this shift would be a massive inconvenience for most real estate agents. Not Barbara. The very next day she sent us an email telling us that she had registered for access to properties in the city, and that we had several appointments for showings already lined up. Within 2 weeks we found our dream house and we put in an offer. A week after that we had come to an agreement with the seller. At this point we thought we were well on our way, but our road to closing escrow was very rocky, and it turned out to be a lot of work for Barbara.
Throughout the inspection process Barbara was always there to give us advice and recommend various specific inspectors and contractors for us to talk to before completing the deal. The extra inspections she recommended turned up several significant issues with the house that our general inspection would have missed, with Barbara’s counsel we were able to come to a mutually equitable agreement over repairs with the seller.
During the final stages of escrow, we ran into various problems with our lender, including some due to the lender’s misunderstanding of recently changed lending laws. This resulted in several days of delay to the closing of escrow. It even got to the point where we were starting to incur significant financial penalties to the seller because of the delay in closing. Throughout this stressful and sometimes sleepless process, Barbara kept us apprised of the situation (even when there were no changes, which was still very helpful), and worked hard to represent our interests. In the end, by discussing our situation and the nature and cause of the delays with the seller, she was able to get the seller to agree to negate our penalties.
Two months later, we are slowly finishing getting settled into our dream home. Barbara played a critical role in helping us get here.
You would be hard-pressed to find someone more professionally, courteous, honest, and genuinely kind real estate professional (and person!) to work with. We had the misfortune of a few interactions with other real estate agents at various open houses, their excessively heavy sales approach let us know what a rarity Barbara is. We’ve heard people say that you don’t really need a real estate agent, for us that couldn’t be further from the truth, having no experience we were lucky enough to be able to trust Barbara, she researched codes, and found out the answers to questions we never would have dreamed of asking. Her depth of knowledge blew us away as she was prepared for so many different problems and scenarios that could be thrown at you. Now after doing this every weekend for the last year and half, with all we’ve learned, we know just how much we don’t know. If we were to buy another house tomorrow, there is no way we’d do it without Barbara. From our first e-mail inquiry to the day we got the keys to our dream home, Barbara has been a joy to work with!
Michelle and Nick