Nicole Stanbra & The Stanbra Team – BEWARE – after doing 3 transactions within a 3 month span totaling 1.13 in commissionable sales we DO NOT RECOMMEND. The bottom line is I would like to save others from experiencing what my fiancé and I just went through working with The Stanbra Team out of Jupiter, Florida.
After finding this realtor through an online search we ended up purchasing a property for my fiancés father. Everything seemed to be going smooth, however there were a few questions that needed to be answered – the main one being why the HOA dues were so high considering very little amenities.
After asking more than ten times WHY are the HOA dues so high – Nicole Stanbra explained it was due to "the pool and the flood insurance". However, this is actually a false statement.
Prior to purchase, we were made aware of an assessment that was claimed to be paid in full by the seller. Come to find out that 1/4 of the HOA dues was a $7800 loan debt that every owner was paying back. The HOA dues should actually cost $350/month and not $463/month.
After asking neighbors who have moved into the development recently if they were made aware of this debt, it is very concerning that their real estate agents did make them aware.
It would have taken a little due diligence on Nicole Stanbra's part to make a few phone calls to the HOA to find out why the HOA dues were so high considering that we kept asking. How can it not be disclosed if it was a debt to all of the owners? We closed on this property August 30th, 2019 and received an invoice in October to pay the $7800 or continue to pay it in the dues with interest monthly.
Being unaware of Nicole Stanbra's lack of due diligence, we decided to start house shopping for our own place. Being that I had just bought a property August 1st in Jupiter, Nicole Stanbra mentioned if we were to work with her to find a property that she would sell my house for free considering I had just purchased it and would be losing money indefinitely.
I felt comfortable working with someone that seemed to care and we decided to move forward over the next months looking at a few houses with Nicole Stanbra and the Stanbra Home Team.
We happened to find a place in PGA and decided to put in an offer on a For Sale By Owner Property. One thing that did rub me the wrong way was the first time I came to look at this place Nicole Stanbra told the FSBO's to have professional pictures taken to help them sell the home fast.
I was taken back that MY real estate agent would help the sellers of a house I like get more offers. I felt this was very unprofessional considering I liked the place and was excited to have my fiancé see it.
Why would MY realtor be giving advice on how to sell the property quicker when I was interested? She stated because they were FSBO that she was trying to earn their business by showing she knows how to get houses sold quickly and possibly get on the deal or future deals with them.
We paid just under full price, and because we did so, we were offered a generator, in wall AC unit and garage storage units as a thank you for paying so close to asking. It is unfortunate that we did not get this in writing as we never received these added value items.
Being that we decided to invest in this property, I decided to work with Nicole Stanbra to rent my other property considering that I would lose thousands of dollars selling it just months after purchasing due to realtor commissions.
However, it was apparent that Nicole was not interested in renting the property as all listings were pushed out to Zillow and Realtor.com as FOR SALE.
She explained that you can't offer a property for both sale and rent on the advertising platforms and assured me it was correct on the MLS. For whatever reason, against my wishes, both online search tools chose to offer it for sale and she stated that she was having a hard time getting someone from these advertising sources on the phone to fix the issue and make it show for rent.
In all actuality, I believe this was a tactic for her to make more money in commission by only having it listed to the public for sale. Snow bird planning for seasonal rentals couldn't be more perfect, rentals in general were few and far between and Jonathan's Landing in Jupiter is a prime location with very little rentals available, and none as nice as my upgraded unit.
The timing would have been perfect to generate interested renters from up North and I explained multiple times that I was more interested in gaining those looking online than realtors who were looking to line their pockets with commission. She assured me her efforts were the same to rent or sell and was trying to get offers.
Once receiving the paperwork to list my townhome – not only did Nicole Stanbra try to charge 10% commission on my rental (instead of the typical first month – she also had it in the contract to give the other real estate not half of her commission – but half of the first month) very shady. She also tried to offer it for sale at her full commission rate.
Obviously that was not a warm and fuzzy feeling considering her original offer of selling it for no commission and considering we just upgraded to our home which she made the full commission on.
More bad taste came when reviewing the listing verbiage online and seeing that all of the comments were about The Stanbra Home Team Guarantee and not my property. We will get to the fraudulent advertising issues in a minute.
On the day that we did my open house – All advertising material was promoting working with The Stanbra Home Team. She couldn't attend the opening, but her counterpart did.
Marketing materials blanketed my kitchen table for potential buyers to see including:
"Move Up Home Program – SELL and PURCHASE a home with The Stanbra Team and receive CASH BACK at closing! As a way of saying THANK YOU for bring a VIP Buyer/Seller, we will credit you 1% of the purchase price of your new home. Up to $5,000 CASH BACK at closing!"
"Your Home Sold Guaranteed WE PUT IT IN WRITING! We GUARANTEE to sell your home in 90 Days or less, or we pay you $5,000! It’s that simple! NO RISK, NO GIMMICKS!"
"Love Your Home Guaranteed - WE GUARANTEE you will love your home, or we will sell it commission FREE! When you purchase a home as a VIP Buyer, if for whatever reason you become dissatisfied with the home you purchased within 12 months, we will sell it for you FREE and help you find your next home."
There was even a checklist with something as small as offering her clients that came on board a free house cleaning prior to open house (something never offered to me – again leaving a very sick feeling in my stomach).
If you are going to offer something online and on-site at your property that you are about to make a serious amount of commission on - make sure you do the right thing and offer it to everyone. Don't wait till you're on-site to make your client feel bad. It is simply not good business.
After getting an offer on my house that would have made me lose thousands more than I had hoped to, I explained she had to get the buyer up. When we agreed to the cash deal, Nicole Stanbra forgot to mention that I had to wait almost 3 months to close. Allegedly due to tax purposes which honestly makes no sense, most people want to close prior to end of year, not in January leaving me paying $1000/month in HOA and Insurance – costing me even more money.
So now we have $7800 in added HOA debt due to her negligence and she made commission off of 3 properties totaling $1.13 Million Dollars.
My recommendation to those selling or buying is to BEWARE & STAY FAR AWAY FROM THE STANBRA HOME TEAM and especially Nicole Stanbra.
If you do decide to use them, my recommendation is to get everything in writing ahead of time and make sure that all of their Marketing Effort Disclaimers are fully disclosed so you know where you stand because she will tell you that there is an asterisk and that you are not eligible for any of them. Putting an asterisk and stating some restrictions apply without proper disclaimers is unlawful, deceiving and misleading to consumers.
