ReMax Real Estate – Harlan Mayer and Heather Howell

I used Harlan buying and selling my primary residence. He is efficient, professional and passionate. He has an investment mindset. I strongly recommend him for your next home buying/​selling journey.

Working with Harlan to purchase my home was a great experience! He really cares about his clients’ wants and works hard to find the perfect property. This was my first home purchase and learned a ton of invaluable information from Harlan about the buying experience and Portland housing market. We ended up getting an offer accepted on a very competitive listing, and were very successful in our favor through negotiations. I feel jaded that the home buying process was this easy. He is a true professional and extremely competent! I’d recommend to anyone.

Not only was this agent instrumental in helping me with my first home purchase, he has taken time to understand my needs and found a home which has been a great fit. He has stayed in contact over the years and has gone above my expectations by continuing to provide excellent service and advice. I must say he’s done an excellent job all the way around!

Harlan was absolutely wonderful to work with. My husband and I were relocating from out of state, and had less than 24 hours to look at properties. Harlan gave us suggested properties to tour and we researched several ourselves. Once we had houses picked out, he spent the day driving us all over town (quite literally all over Portland (SE, SW, NE, NW) to tour inside of the houses. He was efficient, and incredibly accommodating. Harlan is driven, up front, and a dedicated realtor. We had an offer submitted and accepted by 9pm that day. It was an absolute pleasure to work with him! I would work with him again in a heartbeat, and will be recommending him in the future.

Harlan helped us buy our first home and we couldn’t be happier! He was always available and working non stop to find us our dream home. His knowledge and experience made the process super easy and it was a pleasant bonus that he had such a great personality and was super easy to get along with. Overall, the home buying process with Harlan was smooth and enjoyable! We didn’t know what to expect as first time home buyers but it was a joy to work with Harlan!

Harlan was a great agent for us. We wanted an income property are new to Portland so we really appreciated his experience as a landlord here. Harlan is very fast paced and not someone to hold your hand through the whole process. That said he is incredibly responsive, always quick to respond to a txt or email. He is really fun to work with, spot on with pricing, and really honest about what his roll will be.
Harlan also brings a great team to the table. He’s been buying and selling real estate for a while now so he’s got a top notch team of inspectors, etc he calls upon. I’ve watched friends discover problem after problem in their home, but nothing has surprised us here and Harlan has such a good eye for condition and understanding of renovation costs that he could identify the key fixes and give us a ballpark on the costs before we ever made an offer.
Buying a home is stressful. With Harlan you have an agent who will get you the best price and have fun doing it. What more could you need

We’ve done three real estate transactions with him, and he’s been excellent every time. Super happy with his service and the outcomes.
I think it’s appropriate to judge realtors based on their results rather than their attire, and based on results he deserves five stars. We were very happy with our first home, the purchase price he negotiated, and the price he negotiated when we sold it. He’ll show us a house almost anytime, and we’ve seen several houses with him on weekends and on short notice.
He’s not shy about stating his opinion, which has helped us avoid bad houses and understand things he likes about a house that we don’t notice. He’s also good at answering any questions we have.
My favorite part about working with him, and what sets him apart from other realtors, is his knowledge of home repairs and structural issues. He’s done several home renovations and uses that experience to spot issues that are likely sources of significant concern and/​or expensive repairs. He can often give accurate ballpark estimates for repairs. Finally, he did an excellent job finding us good contractors who did repairs/​improvements to our home at good prices.
Highly recommended — his service has been excellent in every way.

I was buying a house solo, so it was nice to have someone in my corner!
He was very responsive, flexible, and willing to work with my ridiculous geographic parameters, vague architectural preferences, and general cheapness. He let me handle the parts of the process that I wanted to manage (obsessively hitting the refresh button on housing listings), and took over any tasks that I didn’t want to deal with (phones calls, picking inspectors, appointment scheduling) in addition to the tough job of negotiating the deal.
Most importantly, he gave me great advice, managing my expectations during a process that can sometimes be an emotional rollercoaster. The «don’t get too attached» mantra came in handy when an inspection showed that my «dream house» was trying to kill me in about three different ways…
In the end, I found a house that I love, in great shape, for a great price.
Right now, it’s hard to imagine ever selling, but if I do, I know who I’ll call…

Harlan is AWESOME. I am a residential building science nerd but I didn’t know a thing about actually buying a house when I pushed a button on Zillow and he called me 15 seconds later (true story). The market has certainly started to pick up here around Portland, and I mostly knew what I wanted, but if it weren’t for Harlan, I might still be looking. He knew when we found my house that it was right for me, and he basically carried me through the process. I think that buying a house with Harlan was actually easier than going to the DMV.
He knows the area; he knows finance; he knows how to deal with other realtors and mortgage brokers; and he knows how to help his clients, above all else. And yes, after I moved in he brought me wine! Can’t argue with that :)

Here is is folk, my dirty little Unilocal secret. I hate giving bad reviews. There I said it! But hey Unilocal isn’t all sunshine & mouthgasms. It’s time for some real people, real review, and all around real talk right now.
Harlan was the realtor handling the first house we wanted to look at. He smooth talked us into working with him with promises of «showing a house any time of day!» and his endless sea of connections that would help the process. His cockiness immediately rubbed me the wrong way however as two completely clueless first time home buyers this sounded like just what we needed.
It wasn’t long before we dispelled his first promise of «showing a house any time of day». This is only true if any time of day happens to be when is convenient for him and if it’s not on a weekend. I understand realtors have lives and that houses can’t always be shown but he made no effort to work with us on times. On a few occasions we asked to see something on a Friday to which he responded «Great, we’ll take a look Monday». When Monday came around there were generally a ton of other offers on said home. To add fuel to my fiery hate he was often late and wearing shorts, flip flops, shirts with stains. Come on guy, you’re our realtor not a mall employee. I was not at all impressed with his level of professionalism which was lacking.
Before buying our now home we brought a few friends and family around to help us with our decision making process. Every concern our support people voiced he belittled and talked over. It seemed to me that he was more concerned in getting our sale over and done with then helping us find what we really wanted. Each person who met with Harlan promptly said to us «That guy’s a dick «. once he was gone. Each-​and-​every-​person, no exception.
As anyone who has ever purchased a house knows, it’s scary! Like I said we knew nothing. Harlan did nothing to try to help us understand the process or jargon swirling around us. Any questions we did ask we were just left feeling stupid and with no real explanation from him.
Harlan was good about closing cost. He got us what he had promised which was a plus but with the overall negatively of the experience, I can’t give him a star for this.
Phew, felt good to get all that off my chest! How Harlan has a sea of 5 star reviews is not only mind-​blowing but fishy. If we had it to do over we would have dropped him right away. Let my ²⁰⁄₂₀ hindsight be your gain and avoid him.
As far as his comment below: Yes, my partner was predominately the person taking care of this however this is the home we plan to have our family in. To not be thought of as a «client» is completely rude not to mention sexist.

Harlan helped us purchase our first home toward the end of 2011. After looking at many homes and finding the right one he successfully negotiated a very complex short-​sale with an uncooperative seller. Communication was great, we received updates every few days about the currant process and realistic expectations. Harlan has an extensive network of contacts for your needs during the buying process.