A Review of My Realtor, Ed Greable

It's really hard to find a great realtor. Ed Greable is the best out there.

In the housing frenzy of the mid-2000s everyone and their brother got into real estate. I was in a bar where the bar tender was moonlighting as a mortgage broker and signing loans for people while serving them drinks. It was bad. Today the market has cooled considerably but there are still a lot of amateurs out there. It's hard to find someone in this field that is a true professional, that has the right contacts, and who actually brings value to your transaction.

As a recent transplant to Massachusetts, in December of 2009 I started looking for a realtor to buy a home in the Somerville / Medford area. I interviewed a lot of realtors in the area and each of them felt "salesy" and slimy or inexperienced. And then I met Ed. He was very cool and calm, not aggressive, he listened and seemed to understand what I was looking for. He asked all of the right questions. When I told him I thought I would like to work with him, he didn't require an exclusivity contract like so many realtors do. He felt his results would speak for themselves and we had a gentlemen's agreement.

Ed immediately started showing me properties that met my criteria. He never tried to push me into a deal but he was also very straight-forward about telling me how quickly (or slowly) he thought a particular property would sell for. He was very accurate with how much over or under asking price he thought a property would sell for. After a couple of months of looking for just the right place, we found it. Ed brought me to this property the day it hit the market. We were the first to make an offer in a pretty competitive space. Ed negotiated the deal throughout and managed to save me many thousands of dollars and did so in a professional manner where the seller felt like they were getting a fair deal and I felt like I was saving money.

Further evidence of Ed's commitment to his client, me, was the fact that he actually made less money on the commission of this particular property than he could have made on others, but he knew this was the right property for me.

As we got into the Escrow process, Ed's experience and professionalism continued to lend themselves to a great transaction; he suggested a great inspector, he got me in touch with a fantastic mortgage broker, he introduced me to the FHA 203k Program (a federally-insured rehabilitation loan program that I wouldn't have otherwise known about), he introduced me to a very experienced real estate attorney (who ended up saving me quite a bit of money in the Purchase & Sale agreement wording) and the many other people that required to make for a positive real estate transaction.

This is where you get the most value from a great Realtor; finding the right home is important, structuring the best offer is important... but having the contacts to make the whole purchase process and subsequent ownership a smooth ride, that is what matters the most. This is an area where Ed excels.

I will definitely work with Ed again in the future and I recommend him to all of my friends. He's a nice man and he's your best ally in a complicated and rapidly changing real estate market.