Dear Mary and Jeff,

Thanks to you two, my mother is settled in her new home with no worries this winter!  We appreciate all the work you did to sell her house in such a shaky market.  It's still hard to believe that it sold within 24 hours!  I believe the staging, doing a pre-listinginspection, your pricing expertise and your unique selling strategies made all thedifference.

On top of that, your willingness to help us set up all the cleaning, landscaping, repairs, etc. was an extraordinary help.  Add to that, Jeff taking a day to offer a garage sale and then CLEANING the garage afterwards left us speechless (and that's not easy!). Italso meant so much to me that you were willing to drive to Seattle for meetings with mom.  

Just a note to thank you for the fast and easy sale of my home in Bellevue.  I certainly did not think that in 8 days, I would have a mutually accepted agreement at full price with no inspection contingency. Your exclusive business model worked beautifully!

I truly appreciate all the help and advice you and Jeff provided from the professional staging to preparing the home for sale. Not many realtors will come help movefurniture, trim the lawn and meet vendors to get the house market-ready.

Without a doubt, the quick and smooth sale through closing would not have happened without your attention to detail and top negotiation skills. I definitely give you ‘five stars’ and highly recommend your services and expertise.

Thank you once again for such a smooth selling transaction!

Sharon Newtson

To Prospective Clients of Mary Lee & Jeff Shaffer,

We strongly endorse the work of Mary Lee and Jeff Shaffer.  They combine their expert salesmanship and very intelligent business skills with experience, dedication, and integrity.  They exhibit grace under pressure, are relentlessly positive, and get results!  We hope that you choose to work with them, and are absolutely confident you will have the same professional, high-quality experience that we did. 

We also appreciate all the times you went above and beyond to work issues, facilitate solutions, and help make our experience the best it could be. 

Thank you for everything!

Frankly, we were initially stressed out with how the cooling down of the housing market as result of the subprime mortgage melt-down would affect the sale of our home. As you knew, we had already committed to buying a new home and we would be paying two mortgages as long as our old home remained on the market.

During our first meeting, we were already comforted by a presentation of a very well-thought out strategy. We were more impressed as we witnessed you put your plan into action. The net result is that even under much dampened market conditions, we got a few offers after its only been on the market for a few days.

With your negotiation skills, we were able to get a final offer which is the highest bid from a buyer with the best financial background to close on the transaction. The latter turns out to be a crucial factor as it has become much more difficult for buyers to get loans as the mortgage market tightened recently. 

It is not too much of an exaggeration to say that the two of you have worked magic for us.

Thanks again!

One day, when we find ourselves ready to move on you will be our first call.  Until then we are happy to    recommend your services to anyone looking to buy or sell a home - just give them our number!

Thanks again - we appreciate everything you've done for us!!

Best Regards,

Steven & Kyleen Carlson

Thanks for the great job selling our Somerset home.  All our friends are stunned when we put the house on the market late on Friday, February 2nd, and had the final-closing check in hand on February 29th.  Jeff and you deserve a lot of credit for making our sale happen so smoothly, professionally, and rapidly.  We really appreciate your organized, business-like approach.  No doubt sellers don't usually approach long before intent to sell, the way we did, with the sale date dependent on our new house construction and its indeterminate permitting delays.

You did a great job of explaining your approach and the Somerset market / seasonality, and then keeping us apprised during the process.  Your handyman referrals for small repairs and painting were timely and cost-effective, as was Jeffs personal help in miscellaneous tasks.  Your pricing was spot-on.

Sincerely,

Robert Porter & Charlotte Lin

In May, we bought a house with a non-contingent offer and had less than 45 days to sell our house.  We called you back to update the comparable houses and assist us with pricing.  You arrived at our house with updated comparables and a price range for listing our house.  We were doubly impressed with your track record of properly pricing houses to get multiple offers, having buyers waive contingencies and selling your listed properties at asking price or above.  We  only hoped that this would happen with our sale and you assured us that it was certainly possible, considering the market for homes in Somerset in our price range.

Your good natured willingness to get the job done on such short notice was nothing short of fantastic!  In the week prior to the actual listing, the house was staged by a professional stager and extensive marketing materials were prepared.  We left for our son's college graduation on a Friday, one day after officially listing the house, and when we returned on the following Tuesday, five days later, you presented us with two offers which were very good.  We accepted the offer that had no inspection or financing contingencies, and was also substantially more than the asking price.

We would highly recommend your services to other Somerset homeowners who would like to sell their house with the support of a professional team that really knows what they are doingYou exceeded our expectations!

Isaac & Kathy Seliger

 Deciding to sell our house in Somerset after 25 years was a huge decision for us.  We were so relieved to have you walk in our door and calm all our worries.  You are absolutely the best!

We can't thank you enough for your professionalism, your ethics, your knowledge of the market, your wonderful marketing, your staff, and patience in answering all our questions.  It is always a pleasure to work with someone who knows every aspect of the process - buying, selling, marketing and legal.

We were so pleased when our home sold in 3 days for more than the listing price and it really was painless!  We would be pleased to have you use us as a reference and highly recommend you for anyone buying or selling a home.

Pam and Joe Wilton

Within a span of 13 months, we sold two homes and purchased one with Mary Lee & Jeff Shaffer as our real estate agents.  Prior to this we had been in our Somerset home for 18 years, so we were unaccustomed to the complexitites of selling a home in this new century.

Mary and Jeff are the epitome of the word "professional".  They truly uphold their commitment to work 100% in your interest.  Proof positive is that both homes we owned were sold for over the asking price.

Having Mary and Jeff as your agents does make financial sense, but just as importantly, they are a pleasure to do business with.

We heartily recommend the professional services of Mary and Jeff without a single reservation.  Our only disappointment is that they don't have a branch office in Southern California so we can call upon them again in the future.

Meredith and Ron Summers

We tried to be reasonably thorough in our search for an agent to sell our house, and interviewed four separate teams, including Mary and Jeff.  In fact, it was only a few months ago that we were sitting and reading these very same recommendations, looking for some sort of 'sign', any sign.  Well, look no further...you've found it! We think Mary and Jeff really are the best.  They take their work very seriously and are very, very good at what they do.

Some of the specific items which particularly impressed us included (1) they did a lot of 'homework' (i.e. researching comparable sales) in developing the right sales price for our house, (2) their staging contractors did an excellent job (and were physically helpful) in helping us prepare our house for sale, (3) we particularly liked the revolving room-by-room presentation of our house on their web site, and (4) their knowledge of Somerset and surrounding areas is probably unsurpassed.  Perhaps most importantly of all, savvy negotiating skills were very much required for our sale, and Mary did a fabulous job with this.  At a minimum, you want them on your side - you don't want them on the other side.

In the end, we received several over-bids in the first week of being on the market!  We are completely satisfied with their handling of our house sale, and recommend them without qualification to represent you.

Randy Siegel & Andrea Steinbach