Recently we (my husband and I) sold our house in Colorado Springs and needed to find another house in Denver. Although we were not panicky about finding a new place, we wanted to find something as soon as possible. Mark Hunke came highly recommended as a buyer’s agent, and we engaged his services in May of 2003. We began commuting from Colorado Springs a couple of times each week in order to check out the numerous houses which seemed to meet our specifications. Mark emailed listings to us each night before we drove to Denver, and we deleted any properties that we felt were unacceptable (although we never deleted very many!). The process was actually quite enjoyable! I guess the important part of our experience has to do with the excellent job Mark did as our agent. When we found a house that we really liked, we realized right away that it was in need of repairs. If we were going to be able to do everything we wanted to do (including a kitchen renovation and adding three decks) we were going to have to persuade the seller to lower his price-considerably. Mark was a tough negotiator when it came to convincing the seller’s agent that she should accept our offer. When the seller countered our offer at ten thousand dollars more than we were willing to pay, Mark talked to the seller’s agent again and assured her that she was about to lose our offer. When she met with her client again, he lowered his asking price by ten thousand dollars, and we bought the house. The story doesn’t end there, however. During the inspection, the inspector found rust in the furnace. Although the furnace and air conditioner were both in working order, they were twenty years old and needed to be replaced. Mark took this information back to the seller’s agent and asked for the replacement costs of these items. The seller agreed. It’s extremely important to hire someone who is going to look out for your interests as a buyer, and as the buyer, we wanted someone of integrity who would aggressively go to bat for us. Because of Mark’s hard work, we were able to buy the house we wanted at a price we could afford and still have the resources to make the improvements we wanted to make. Not only will we do business with him again, but we have already recommended him to friends interested in purchasing a home in Denver. We feel very blessed that Mark was the agent we hired.