My wife Beth and I recently bought and then sold our homes through one of your agents, Carol Staats. I had known Carol from working on the RTC together and other town organizations, so I contacted her and asked if she would meet with us to discuss the possible sale of our Falls Village home. With our last child in college, we were investigating our options and wanted some professional advice on how to proceed with our goal of downsizing.

When Carol met with us in the early fall, she let us know that the Falls Village market was a bit slow and a sale could take some time. We were discouraged because we wanted to start looking right away and we knew we could not buy until we sold Falls Village (or so we thought). Upon further discussion, Carol suggested that, with our low mortgage balance, we look into a home equity line of credit which would allow make some pre-sale repairs and still have money to purchase our new home. She helped us find a smaller home in Ancram, and we were able to avoid the NYS mortgage tax.

We quietly listed the house for $325,000 in the fall of 2017, but choose not to make it public, until all the repairs were completed. I worked through the winter rebuilding my porch, redoing the sheetrock of the upstairs hallway, and painting, as Carol suggested. We also took her advice and had the septic inspected. That turned out to be great advice, as the tank needed replacement and we took care of it in advance without stress!

As the time approached to go public with the listing, Carol suggested one more thing! I was exhausted at this point but was willing to listen. She said, "you need to remove the pantry” and open an area that had been two small hallways. We were tired of making changes, but she insisted that this job would remove a major flow issue of the home. She said that a $2000 expense will net us a $10,000 return. We were hesitant, but we went along with it. The result was better then we could have expected.

We closed on our house in Ancram and were anxious to get moving, all of the projects were done so the Falls Village house was put on the MLS. We had a number of showings and finally, on day 27 of the listing, we received an offer for $5,000.00 below asking price, way more than the $10,000 return on our $2,000 improvement!

Carol's knowledge, energy, and encouragement made the whole process seem so easy. Beth and I are thrilled with our new home and are so glad that it was Carol who helped us. She is a true professional and an asset to Elyse Harney Real Estate.

Respectfully,

Tom Grayson

A year ago, we spent the better part of the afternoon sitting out front of the White Hart catching up with Elyse Morris and telling her that after five years of on and off looking, we were really ready to buy. The fact that she and John Panzer still took our phone calls after all this time, probably says it all. They didn’t just want to sell us a house, they wanted to help us buy the house that was right for us.

Having only ever owned apartments, buying a house, let alone buying a house from afar, was a daunting process. We knew nothing about furnaces, roofs, annual landscaping costs, and the list goes on. John and Elyse went above and beyond, pointing out potential issues, educating us on the pros and cons of various heating and cooling systems and helping to entertain our children as we toured houses.

Alas, when we did find the right house all did not go smoothly and again John and Elyse stepped up to the plate, keeping both parties engaged in a deal that could have easily fallen apart and helping to oversee the installation of a new septic system prior to closing.

We have been the happy owner of a CT weekend house for the past seven months and while we don’t expect to ever leave this home, if we do, John and Elyse will be our first call.

Elyse and John were a great help from beginning to end, and if anything even more so *after* the purchase. Highly recommended.

We highly recommend Elyse Harney Real Estate for their personal service, market knowledge, and deep relationships with local service providers. They make everything easy from purchasing, renovating and renting a home to selling it. Elyse Harney Morris and John Panzer listen to and understand your goals and guide you personally through everything necessary to enjoy the wonderful Lakeville and Salisbury area.

We cannot recommend Elyse and her team more highly. We just closed on our new home in Litchfield and are over the moon. The process up until we started working with Elyse was truly painful we went through 4 brokers whose interest in our search bordered on the non existent at best. We were truly fortunate to find Elyse through a friend and her professionalism, interest and attention to detail made all the difference.

We found our future home in early June and closed in early August. Working with Elyse and her team during that time was a true pleasure. We always felt we were in great hands throughout the whole process. Home buying can be a daunting endeavor but not when you work with Elyse and her team, they are really the best in the entire area I will not work with anyone else in the future.