Agents of Chaos
After two brokers’ licenses were suspended in September, fellow real estate agents were asking, “What took so long?"
TWENTY-SEVEN. That’s how many homeowners filed complaints to the Washington State Department of Licensing about Pierce County brokers Michael and Tara Hellickson over the last two years. And these weren’t the misplaced ravings of underwater borrowers beat down by the recession. They were eyebrow-raising accusations from distressed-property owners who had reason to believe they’d been scammed: The Hellicksons allegedly promised to buy homes in 30 to 90 days if they failed to sell them, but then reneged; listed short-sale homes for less than homeowners had agreed to; and even counseled clients to stop making mortgage payments. And on September 2, after almost 18 months of digging into the allegations, the DOL suspended the Hellicksons’ real estate license. A judge was expected to decide whether or not to revoke the brokerage’s license in mid-October.
But according to local brokers who’ve dealt directly with the suspended agents, the Hellicksons’ business practices have been alienating their peers for years. One in particular, who requested anonymity, represented a buyer in an early-2000s transaction in which Michael represented the sellers. Typically a listing agent collects a 6 percent commission and splits it evenly with the buyer’s broker, but in this case Hellickson charged 7 percent and gave only a third of it to the other agent. The lopsided share was by no means illegal, but it soured this agent on ever working with him again. “My philosophy is that real estate agents are your customers and clients, as much as buyers and sellers are,” the agent says. “Agents who treat each other well have much smoother transactions for their clients.”
And that agent’s experience wasn’t an isolated one. The Northwest Multiple Listing Service has fined Hellickson and his brokerage tens of thousands of dollars over the last several years for a host of non-consumer-related infractions, including failing to obtain the proper documents for a price change on a house he’d listed and leaving behind business cards to advertise his services at homes already listed by other agents. Representatives for the NWMLS won’t say how many times it has cited Hellickson or for how much, but all agents have access to its monthly disciplinary reports, and those who’ve read them say he’s received between $50,000 and $70,000 in fines just this year. So why didn’t the organization—as it watched him break rule after rule—nip this in the bud months, if not years, ago? NWMLS CEO Tom Hurdelbrink says it will kick out members for business practices that are “so detrimental [to other members] and so consistent,” but in this case those criteria hadn’t been met.
On the other hand, Marlow Harris had a much easier time meeting those criteria—by trying to out Hellickson. The Coldwell Banker Bain broker was threatened with expulsion from the NWMLS earlier this year for publishing a list of Hellickson’s infractions on her blog, 360digest.com, because, as she was told, “those fines were internal and could be misunderstood by nonmembers.” She removed the list but struck back with the title of her latest post on the topic, dated September 15:
“Told you so.”
Published: November 2010
Regarding the comments by “Investor”:
No one on the Hellickson Team was a REALTOR. Realtor’s are those agents and brokers who specifically join the National Association of Realtors, the professional organization that has a Code of Ethics for real estate professionals.
That is an important distinction, as the biggest complaint against the Hellickson Team was their lack of ethics and rule-breaking, against both buyers, sellers and other agents and brokers.
It had nothing to do with volume or pampering. It was Michael and Tara Hellickson’s continual breaking of rules and ethics violations. They FORGED seller’s signatures! They made changes to listings without permission of the owners! They lied to people! With no Code of Ethics to guide them, they were like Wild West cowboys just doing whatever they wanted.
Please do not refer to them as “Realtors”. They were not. They were just agents and brokers. Do not besmirch the name of the Realtor with the loose use of this term.
I purchased, and sold, approximately eight homes with the Hellicksons over the last ten years. I know Mike personally, and yes he is guilty of being aggressive, there’s no question there; that does not however make him a crook. I have just now heard about all of this that’s affecting Mike & Tara and cannot testify as to what’s happened recently, but I can tell you that they do not have a history of breaking laws or of being anything less than honest. I will say however that they have never adhered to the “old school” real estate model which is really what I hear everyone complaining about. What I keep hearing is a bunch of whining from other realtors who complain that they only choose to work with one or two clients at a time whereas Mike and Tara choose to work with many times more at a time. I can compare it to an overpriced hair salon. Everyone with blue hair and too much time on their hands is still welcome to go to their favorite hair salon and pay some outrageous fee to be pampered all day long and sit under a big hair dryer and gossip to the person next to them about the horrible service at all of the Hair Masters and Great Clips of the world, but they’re entirely different business models. One works off of volume and you know you will get a decent cut, in and out in short time, and same money. Mike, on the other hand, has always operated off of volume. To my knowledge Mike has never tried to present himself as a “pampering” type of realtor. I was always free to go find one of those if I wanted to, but I also knew that Mike and Tara could get things done for me. I have worked with other realtors and while I might have enjoyed being driven around leisurely in their fancy cars and show me everything I wanted to see, Mike and Tara helped me narrow my search and my time, (and theirs), was much more focused and effective. Sure they’re sometimes hard to reach on the phone, but since when is that a crime?
As far as those people who were stupid enough to list their homes in 90 days, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that the rules for that listing were that you had to list it at a below market price and keep lowering the price. Has anyone looked at a Ford sales ad lately with all of the stacked up rebates, credits, and gimmicks that they pile on there to “offer” a lower price in the paper? There’s not one person alive who can qualify as a recent graduate from kindergarten with a military background and a college degree who also happens to be a Ford Motor Company veteran and is legally blind. How about Obamas false claims about what was, or wasn’t, contained in the Obamacare bill? Why is it that car dealers and presidents can make all of these claims, yet when a realtor does this he’s alleged to be a crook?