“As a homebuyer you don’t *need* to use a real estate agent. As a first time homebuyer I was weary of needing one. After all, I knew what kind of house I wanted, roughly what areas of Charlottesville and the surrounding I wanted to live, and there are multiple online tools to help you find them. However after working with Jim for over 2 years to find my first home I can tell you that you would be foolish not to use his expertise. It comes down to a simple word, value.

Jim provides so much value to your home purchase and new ownership that I could not have foreseen when I started this journey. Knowing what future development is being discussed/planned in the area you’re looking at, value. Getting you out of a contract when the sum of the problems in the inspection is greater than you can handle, value. Knowing who to call to get something looked at during your inspection notification and having them actually come out, value.

Being at each and every inspection, second guess home visit, and meeting that he could have skipped once the contract was ratified. So much value. Helping me find a mortgage provider that gave me the best rates and seamlessly worked with Jim to get all the paperwork sorted without me having to play telephone between them, value. Negotiating after the sale to ensure that problems found in the home inspection are safely covered with seller credits and/or repairs, value. Even after I moved in if I need to know a good handyman or other service I can call Jim and his recommendations area always the best and show up, value. Try calling different people from Angie’s list or other review sites and trying to get them to come out and give you an estimate, you’ll understand my frustration. But if Jim says call someone, the person he recommends calls you back, comes out, and does the job right.

I can’t put a number on how much money Jim has saved me in my home buying process and new ownership by helping me avoid mistakes, missteps, or alerting me to opportunities I would have missed, but it would be an enormous amount. He was patient, never pushing me to purchase and even advocating for me to back out in an instance where he could have let me go for it after a year of searching.

Jim only makes money when you buy (or sell) a house. Yet he didn’t push me to buy. Over two years I looked and tried and he remained as patient and helpful the first day as the last. I can honestly say that working with him was the single best decision I could make as a homeowner.