It was around February 2020 when I and my wife decided on buying our own dream home. We were apprehensive and had absolutely no idea of how to go about doing it but we needed to start somewhere. I believe home buying could be a very stressful process, especially for a first-time homebuyer. I thought Google would be a nice place to start looking for a realtor who could help us find our next dwelling. I did my search online to look for a firm with a proven track record, good ratings & testimonials and who could understand what we exactly were looking for within the location of our choosing and of course, keeping it under our budget!! And then the pandemic struck the US to make the whole process a lot harder. We weren't sure if any realtor would be willing in person in these troubled times to go around the city, to show us properties in reality.
Obviously, Market standing, credibility turnaround time, and knowledge played a significant role in our realtor choosing process. While googling, I looked up the best realtors in the Chicagoland area and that's where I came across McPherson Westhoff realty. Emailed them the next day and got a call back within hours from them asking about our selected areas/ expectations for our new home. They took down all the information and customized our property search results based on the criteria we set. Here is where Laura Duckett with Compass Realty was introduced to us for the first time to help us see some properties in which we were interested and we are glad we were.
Laura struck me as an incredibly knowledgeable, patient, honest, helpful punctual, diligent, passionate realtor who loves her job and who was one step ahead in her game of finding us the right property as per our requirements with a pleasing personality. She's serious about her work and humorous when the moment calls for it . She was reachable whenever needed and always inboxed newly listed or upcoming properties depending on the frequency we asked for. She scheduled showings of the properties, even from a third-party website in a timely, meticulous manner with a properly printed travel map at a short notice. She totally respects her clients' considerations, be it price, neighborhood, budget or you name it. We were always comfortable discussing anything and everything with her. To be honest, we became friends with her, talking and looking over multiple properties and it gave us a sense of personal connection with her within a short span of time. We never felt rushed in, forced into buying anything, or any unsolicited advice from her. She would drive with us to multiple properties in a single day all around Chicago and would give suggestions of what needed attention in a potential property, looking closely at the mechanicals, foundation, walls, flooring, ceiling appliances, and materials. She was on top of answering any questions we had, and if she wouldn't know the answer right away she would make an extra effort to find them out by the end of the day to text later. I remember her sending texts even during the late-night hours about a ghost query I had. It wouldn't be an exaggeration if I could say she not only won our trust, she won our hearts!!
Well, after we decided on buying our current home, Laura made the whole process of negotiating, comparing the comps, putting in the offer, inspection, hiring a real estate attorney, and getting a lender at a cheaper rate super quick and super smooth. She kept everyone in the loop while we went through closing with 100% transparency. Unfortunately, Laura couldn't be present because of social distancing restrictions during our closing during the pandemic so she asked us to have our picture taken outside the title company with her headshot and that's exactly what we did. LOL. She, in turn, framed that same picture and gifted it to us at the time of handing over the keys to our new house. That was hilarious!
Later when we became new homeowners she suggested a firm to help us with our moving, setting up internet, and other utilities transferred into our names all of which went through like a breeze and for free!! Our home buying process couldn't be any easier than what Laura made it.
I highly recommend Laura as one of the topmost real estate agents one can find for the Northwest/ western suburbs. Please call her for all your real estate needs, see her in action and I'm sure you'll be delighted you did because she's exceptional in what she does. We kinda sat back and relaxed while Laura did all the work for us. We appreciate a lot all of what you did including the leaf blower which you gifted us with is in use every single weekend reminding us of you being by our side ;).
Thank you, Laura!!
- Paul and Meghann Zabala