Paul Whaley – Coldwell Banker

I recently worked with Paul as part of a relocation package from my company. Paul is one of the top gross real estate agents in the country, and after working with him on my latest transaction, I thought a good Unilocal review would be appropriate to share my experience.
The Good: Paul has a natural ability to understand what type of property you are looking for, and then quickly find that property. After an initial day of viewing properties in the Boston area, Paul and his team went to work to find a property that hit all of our wish list items, and in the middle of February was able to find exactly what we were looking for. He was aggressive in getting us in to see the property, and was able to help us quickly close in on a deal. Paul is generally very responsive to text and phone calls, as long as everything is going well.
The Bad: Post sales support is not Paul’s strength. In fact, it’s a glaring weakness. Our deal was with new construction, and we were dealing with an under-​performing developer. Paul was not at all aggressive in driving visibility into timelines or escalating construction issues. Instead we kept receiving blind assurances on closing dates, and eventually found ourselves homeless for two weeks as we hit delays with certifications. Paul also seemed genuinely afraid of the seller’s agent when escalating issues, which made us question 1) whether he really ever had our best interests in mind, and 2) why he would involve us in a new construction deal with such a nasty and toxic selling agent.
The Ugly: When talking about other clients/​transactions, Paul is very quick to reference how much a property sold for, especially when the price tag is over $ 1M. We are all in business to make money, however in my assessment Paul cares a little too much about the number, and not enough on the ultimate satisfaction of the clients that he represents.
So, all in I give Paul an ‘A’ for finding us the right property, and a ‘D’ for representing our interests. We will not be pursuing his services in the future.