If you are looking for a realtor, I do not recomme...

If you are looking for a realtor, I do not recommend Steve Kettelle and his team! This was the worst experience we ve had with a realtor.

When we first met with him, it was a great sales pitch. The idea of a team that specializes in certain areas appealed to us; someone for listing, someone for showings, someone for closing, etc. The biggest downfall of this system is that you don t know who to contact and don t know if they ll even get back to you. We would contact one person and get a response from another. Sometimes we would contact Steve and his closing coordinator and neither one would respond. Throughout the process, we were not kept in the loop. We weren t informed when the home inspection was completed and what the results were. There would also be times where I (a female) would call or text him to ask him a question. He would then proceed to call my husband to answer or discuss my request. Many times, I was with my husband and he would hand his phone to me to talk to Steve. This seemed to catch Steve off guard. I specifically called Steve to ask for more regular updates. Once that request was in place, I was hoping to receive better updates. The communication, even with a specific request, did not improve.

We had an agreed upon a price and closing date, or so I thought. Before the offer reached the relocation company, the offer was changed in how the money was to be allocated for the closing costs and purchase price as well as a change in the closing date. This offer was never presented to us and would have been denied if he had checked with us. This was a major breach in his fiduciary duties considering we were his clients. Because we were a relocation client, it was submitted to the relocation company for approval. Fortunately, our relocation company was amazing and called to confirm the offer. This was immediately denied. When I spoke with him, he tried to explain that I didn t understand how it worked when in fact he was wrong. This deal was not in our best interest due to working with the relocation company and would have cost us more out of pocket than if we would have just let the relocation company take ownership. While we accepted the new closing date, the pricing had to be renegotiated and caused a further delay.

While in NY state, the contract typically states on or about a date. Our contract stated on or before. When the closing date slipped, again, an extension was sent to the relocation company. When I asked Steve about this, he stated it didn t come from him or his team when in fact it came from a member of his team and he was copied on the request. He was not aware of what was going on with his own team and listings! We asked him to go back to the buyers to discuss the contract due to the date slippage. I still do not know if this was ever done.

Once the relocation company acquired our property but closing didn t occur with the final buyers, Steve was to transfer the utilities to his name until closing. He would have been reimbursed for the utilities during this time. He did not do this because a closing date was 5 days out. This caused more out of pocket costs for us. When I called to discuss why this happened and to get an explanation, I was told that this was based on his experience and that he purposefully ignored the relocation company s request. Because Steve didn t do as requested and NYSEG couldn t get to the house, we were on the hook for utilities longer than we should have been, including once the new owners took ownership of the house. Winter in NY is an expensive time for utilities!

After reading this, I m sure you can see why I believe that Steve only cared about getting his commission and closing the deal, not helping us as sellers. Use The Steve Kettelle Team at your own risk!