Century 21 Real Estate reviews and complaints

This agent tried to trick me into lending more money on an overvalued property because I didn't have enough for a down payment. He was desperate for the deal on the house I was interested in and tricked me and wanted to rework my deal and said everything was going to be okay. He had some shady relationship with the appraiser because they both were Chinese and would speak in their native tongue. Little did he know that although I didn't speak Mandarin, I understood. He wanted me to do a FHA and was saying he was just trying to help but it was all really about him getting the money for selling me the house. I consulted with a friend and this guy is using illegal practices. I went to his office and told him I didn't want to do this and he started yelling at me. I've never been treated like this or spoken like this. I do not know how he could still be in business! He doesn’t know what it means to have integrity. FYI, while I was in the initial stages with him he would make comments about Chinese being smarter and more business savvy than other Asian races and talked about how many Chinese clients he had. Seriously!? I couldn't believe this. Honestly he was rude and arrogant to not just me but to all his customers, such as the phone call he received while I was there. Ray Cai has the WORST customer service and is also shady. I also over heard him talking about doing business with some other Chinese business man, doing some deals on selling houses to him for illegal multiple occupancy for temporary use by Chinese visitors. By selling this high roller Chinese guy homes, they would bring pregnant women to the US so their children could gain US citizenship. This guy is a horrible representation of Century 21, a company that used to lead the market in real estate sales.

Century 21 calls itself innovative professional real estate company and I pretty much thought that was true given that have the perfect rating on Yelp. Believing that these reviews were true, I went to Century 21 office last Saturday hoping that my experience will be as great as everyone else here.

Boy was I wrong! In fact this has been my WORSE service industry experience till date. We (me and my husband) walked in and we were greeted by the receptionist. She was fine There was only one other person in the office RICHARD BASILI. He is a "professional innovative sales agent" as per Century 21 website.

We filled a form and the receptionist said RICHARD BASILI will be helping us. We are interested in buying a house in Jersey City and Hoboken area.

We just mentioned a few constraints (like budget, sq feet area) and right in beginning he said no that wouldn't work. We ignored and sat down. He ran the search and showed us a few units. He showed us some area and I asked him "IS THE AREA SAFE?". As a woman that's the first thing which comes to my mind if I am putting down bunch of hundred thousand dollars.

His reply "I AM NOT IN A POSITION TO SAY WHETHER A PLACE IS SAFE OR NOT. ITS A CITY". I let that slide and moved on to see other units on his machine. He showed another unit in some area which we weren't sure of and I again asked "Is this area safe...I work and travel". His reply was " BEING JUDGMENTAL IS NOT GOING TO GET YOU ANYWHERE...WHAT YOU THINK IS SAFE MIGHT NOT BE SAFE or VICE VERSA". After this, he did this (and I still cannot believe it):
He said " I AM NOT GOING TO SHOW YOU ANYTHING ANYMORE...I WOULDN'T SERVE YOU". Me and my husband were stunned...and asked "are you serious". He said yes I am serious and got up to leave. I was shocked and told him that he cannot speak like that and I went to the receptionist and she was pretty lost. THE BIG MISTAKE WAS HOW DARE I ASK WHETHER AN AREA IS SAFE.

I was flabbergasted at the level of unprofessional behavior I was meted out first hand. He tried to talk to me and I told him to shut up. On which he said "you cannot speak to me like that". I did tell him that "really after how you behaved you expect me to talk nicely to you".

Bottom line, if you want to get insulted do visit this agency. Extremely unprofessional possibly sexist or racist. I cannot think of any other reason why a sales agent will behave like this when a woman asks him "is this area safe?"