The Denny Team – BHHS Select Properties

We had the same experience as another reviewer. Diane comes in and blows all the other realtors we interviewed out of the water. She is knowledgeable, smart and savvy. She said we’d get more for our house than we were expecting, but she also knew the neighborhoods so well, we believed her. So we went with her. And our house sat on the market because it was overpriced. We dropped it to what the other realtors said it would go for but wasted a couple months in mortgage payments in the meantime. As one of her team said to me «we’re like McDonalds, it doesn’t really matter what we sell the houses for because we sell so many.» I wish I would have known that when we were picking the realtor. Don’t be swayed by her amazing original presentation. You’ll hardly ever see her throughout the process and the rest of the team is not nearly as impressive.

The Denny Team is great! Definitely worth 5 stars (more if that was an option)! My husband and I moved into our house about two years ago and could not be happier with all that The Denny Team did for us! We had a set budget and very specific details that we wanted in a house. The entire team was very educated on the market, overly friendly and always willing to do whatever it took to make us both happy. There was never any pressure to go above our set budget, and we looked for months without ever feeling pressured to settle. Anytime we had questions or concerns, they were immediately there with answers and opinions. We were always quickly informed of new homes that were about to come onto the market, and Bridget and Dianne helped us grab our current home days before the open house ensuring we could make the best possible offer to seal the deal. I can’t say enough great things about The Denny Team! We found our dream home thanks to all of their hard work. We love our home and never want to move, but if we ever do, I know that I would use them every time. HIGHLY recommend!!!

Diane Denny sells a lot of houses, but in the process of getting my listing and selling mine, she behaved in what I believe to be an unethical, dishonest and unprofessional manner.
Last spring, I asked three real estate agents to draw up plans to sell my house. One of them was Ms. Denny. Her presentation was impressive; she takes a «team» approach, with specialists for each stage of the process, and has a slick marketing plan.
She is the top seller in the Parkway South High School district, and lives not far from me. She obviously knows the market inside and out. So although she came in $ 20,000 higher than the other two, I figured she knew what she was doing.
Instead, it seems, she exaggerated what the house was worth because she knew she had competition for the listing. As a result, I lost the initial impetus of a new listing, and, even more importantly, the window of time for families with children who wanted to be in their new home before school started.
That’s bad enough. What made it worse is that I needed to move, and I needed to price my house to sell, and she knew it. I’ve had two diagnoses of breast cancer in the last three years, as well as spinal surgery. The first cancer was Stage 3, and is considered metastasized; I take a daily pill to try to keep it at bay, but it has weakened me. I’m trying to stay healthy — and moving out of my big house into something easier was a part of that — but my oncologist still estimates my odds of being alive in 30 months at just 50%. I could not afford to mess around with this sale.
Ms. Denny and the other agents were all well aware of that. When I found a suitable residence and put a contract on it, Ms. Denny was well aware of that, too. She knew that I had to close on my first house by October 1.
Because my house was so overpriced, we had to cut and cut the price, until I feared that people would think there was something wrong with it. When Ms. Denny decided that it needed the services of a stager, she refused to let me talk to her before committing to hiring her. When she brought the stager in, Ms. Denny gave her a tour, in front of me, in which she mocked my house and its furnishings (mostly high-​quality 19^th century family antiques), saying, «This room isn’t TOO bad» of a couple of them, and rolling her eyes and laughing as she said of another, «Oh, don’t even go in there!»
Ms. Denny pressured me heavily to take an offer that was $ 50,000 less than the amount for which she first proposed listing my house, and $ 30,000 less than its price at the time. I refused, which was fortunate: those buyers’ deal to sell their own house fell through, because they couldn’t afford to make repairs to it.
I finally sold for between $ 10,000 and $ 20,000 less than the other two reputable Realtors said it should have gone for, and much, much later than they had predicted would be the case at the right price. At that point, I had no choice. I couldn’t afford to own two houses.
When I complained to Maryann Vitale Alles, owner of Prudential Select Properties in Des Peres, Ms. Denny lied outright about her actions. Ms. Vitale Alles never spoke to me, but simply backed up her employee.
Because of Diane Denny, my finances are tighter than they should be. I’ve learned that top sellers may make their money on volume, and not on getting the best price for their clients; $ 10,000 or $ 20,000 doesn’t really make that much difference in a commission, but it sure does to the seller. I hope that others will learn from my mistake.