Testimonials

Congratulations to Sarasota Real Estate Agent Sandra Rubinstein on the Sale of The Girona by London Bay Homes

The myth of luxury home builders and Realtors® not being able to thrive together in a new home sales market couldn’t be further from the truth at The Founders Club. Our luxury home community welcomes our Sarasota real estate agents with open arms, providing incentives, additional commissions, and timely bonuses, as well as hosting sites for their monthly meetings and events through The Founders Golf Club. Recently, our close relationship with local Realtors® provided an opportunity for us to showcase our Girona model home, and the result was happy homeowners and a lifetime of memories to create in their new home.

Sarasota real estate agent, Sandra Rubinstein of Berkshire Hathaway Home Services, Florida Realty, had been working with clients, Richard and Nancy Sneed, for some time. The prospective homeowners had been looking for a new home and attending open houses in other communities, but couldn’t find a home and community that provided them with the enhancements they sought, such as upgraded space, a modern floor plan, and enriched luxury amenities. Sandra, after previously visiting The Founders Club on several occasions, recommended they tour our boutique-style community where she felt their investment would be better protected. Steve Gibson, sales executive at The Founders Club, invited them to lunch at The Founders Golf Club, where they then found residents can enjoy a luxurious dining experience in the fine dining room, at the casual bar and grille, or on the outdoor verandah overlooking an oak hammock. They were then ready to discover what else the luxury home community had to offer.

What they found were luxury amenities they could see themselves utilizing upon moving to the community, such as the miles of brick-paver walking and bike paths found throughout the community’s 700 acres and the Har-Tru tennis courts where they will be able to take part in round robins, clinics, tournaments, and free play….

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We are thrilled to have been able to work together with Sandra Rubinstein of Berkshire Hathaway Home Services, Florida Realty to find Richard and Nancy’s ideal home in a luxury home community with the luxury amenities they were seeking.

Read the full post at The Founders Club »

The Founders Club
July 2018

Hello Mike (Note: Mike Holland, Managing Broker of the Sarasota Branches of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Florida Realty),

I hope all is well.

It brings me great pleasure to share a recent, very positive experience with Sandra Rubenstein at The Founders Club in Sarasota.

Working with Sandra is a pleasure!

Sandra recently brought a charming couple to London Bay Homes at The Founders Club. We enjoyed several meetings together, all of which were very positive and ultimately culminated in a sale.

Sandra is a true professional, very thorough, fair, concise, accurate, to the point and most of all a great communicator. She has her clients best interests at heart which was clear from the beginning.

All too often, we hear about experiences that were not pleasant and for one reason or another, the messages contain critical, negative representations of unsatisfactory performances resulting in frustration, dissatisfaction and less than stellar results.

How refreshing it is to be able to share a very positive story resulting in happy clients, a successful Realtor and a satisfied builder.

We are excited about the prospect of doing much more business with Sandra and hopefully, other members of your group as well.

With Warm Regards,

Steve Gibson
London Bay Homes at The Founders Club

Steve Gibson, London Bay Homes at The Founders Club
June 2018

We had the best realtor in Sandra. I could call her any time of the day for advice on our transactions or moral support. I would recommend her to everyone in this area. She went above and beyond for us. We have a forever friend in Sandra. Love her!!!

gramDeb1
December 2016

Sandra,We can’t thank you enough for your professionalism, expertise, and hard work in helping my elderly mother sell her lots in Florida.

We tried with several realtors over the past several years with no success. Only until we spent some time on your website and came to understand your unparalleled knowledge of the market and stellar reputation did we realize that you were in a class of your own.

In a tough market, you need the best! We are so glad that we found you.

Barry Jennings
September 2016

Hello Sandra,I, too, am very grateful for all of your hard work! I will certainly refer to you if given the opportunity in the future. What you did for my friend Diane is beyond words. You helped her with an incredible burden when most needed. I am proud to be a part of this!

Have a Great Day!

Louise S. Wagner, GRI, ABR, SRES
Relocation Specialist
April 2016

Dear Sandra, I want to express how grateful I am for all your help selling my Mom’s and her husband’s property in Florida. I was at my wits end from so far away when my Mom’s health deteriorated and so lucky to have found you. Finding you from my realtor friend’s suggestion to call Berkshire Hathaway from Pa. before I flew down to Florida to move my Mom and her husband home to Pa. was a blessing. Had I realized what I was walking into in Florida I would have allotted more time to get everything done, but you made it happen.

There aren’t too many sound ethical people that meet my high standards, but you exceeded my expectations. Your resourcefulness sold a rental property with tenants in it no less ALMOST IMMEDIATELY and the remote settlement looks like all will go smoothly.

Your wisdom and suggestions with my multitude of other problems relating to my Mom as well has been a double blessing. I feel like you are a best friend as well.

I hope we can stay in touch and if I am in Florida again would like to give you a big hug for everything you have done for me.

Words seem inadequate to express how thankful I am, but Thank you so very much!

Diane Rodgers Dziedzic
April 2016

My husband and I looked for a home in North Port, for months using the internet, newspapers and friends in the area with very little luck until we contacted Sandra Rubinstein. Within weeks she found us a wonderful home in our price range and we closed last month.The process went better than we had ever imagined. She guided us through everything and we are very pleased with her services. She was a real professional. I would recommend her to anyone looking for a home in the area. Thank you Sandra.

Diane Grant
September 2015

I looked and found a home using Sandra Rubinstein at Keller Williams. She was the best. She went out of her way to find me a place in my price range. We spoke almost every day, through texts and phone calls and looked at many places in the Venice area.Being from out of town I didn’t know a lot about the area but Sandra quickly educated me about what I needed to know about many things from taxes to municipal services in each town we looked in, until I found a great place, with Sandra’s help in North Port.

She advised me about the paper work involved, what to expect at closing and who to contact for utility services. Sandra also followed up with me after the closing to see if everything was going smoothly. She has been a real “GEM”. I would highly recommend her to anybody looking to find or selling a home in the area.

Tom Clark
October 2015

Dear Sandra,We found working with you to be a joy and you were there to help us during every step of a very involved process selling our commercial condominiun. You never forgot to dot an “i” or cross a “t”. You are a true professional and put our interests above your own.

Not all situations are alike. And, as plans and offers changed, you were able to accommodate us and the situation with diligence and patience and knowledge, responding in the most professional manner to help and support us and again, with emphasis, while putting our interests above your own.

We are very happy to give you our highest recommendation for anyone desiring to sell or buy property, commercial or residential. We, of course, will be seeking your perfect balance of knowledge, drive, and enthusiasm again in our future real estate transactions.

Russell & Mary Inman
Punta Gorda
March 2015

I am writing this as a letter of reference for Sandra Rubinstein of Keller Williams Realty. Sandra has been working with me for several months searching for homes in the Sarasota / Manatee area. I could not have found a more qualified and energetic person for this task.Sandra has been very accomodating, as my scheduled has been very tight, due to my working out of state. She’s been understanding of this, and has worked around my schedule, which I very much appreciate. I know that I have been a challenge to work with, as this has only been my second home purchase, and the paperwork required to purchase has increased significantly since my first home purchase, due to the housing bubble bursting.Sandra has done a superb job guiding me towards houses that fit my criteria, and not wasting my time, bringing me to homes that did not, or were outside my price range. She has always been prepared every time we have met, with comps in the neighborhood, HOA fees, Community information, etc.

Besides working with her on searching for a home, and eventually having one built, Sandra has been a pleasure to spend time with. She has been a great help by pointing out areas of interest, recommending an excellent inspector, and has gone above and beyond to share lessons learned from other clients & builders. Sandra is a great communicator. She is diligent, precise, has excellent negotiation skills and attention to detail, and was the perfect fit for the detailed work of this project. It has been a pleasure having her on “my team.”

I would recommend her services to anyone that is looking for a realtor.

Regina Ford

I am writing this letter in reference to my dealings with Sandra Rubinstein, who was our realtor and friend and helped us realize a dream, buying our handsome, sunny and well-priced 1,100/ft² beach condo on Siesta Key near Sarasota, Florida.We liked Sandra right off the bat, I had submitted a request form on a certain property we liked and had filled it out with a little – oh, how shall we say – colour. I have a sometimes offbeat way of expressing myself and she had no problem with it, even playing along with her own inimitable sense of humour.We decided to hire Sandra as our agent to help us go from the tire-kicking stage to getting serious about buying a property. The prices were right, the stock market was terrible and we were looking to invest some money I had received from a recent health insurance settlement. At this stage, Sandra was instrumental in directing us towards those prospects in our price range and representing good value. Most importantly, she did not overwhelm us with her ideas of what would make a cosy little love nest, but instead let us sniff things out for ourselves. We would have bristled at a strong-armed approach and, thankfully, she was masterful at playing out enough line to let us wander freely through the listings, yet reel us in when we started wasting our time or straying off target.

Finally, we found something that made our knees shake a little, our telltale sign for hitting the jackpot, and that’s when Sandra really earned her pay. She sauntered into the middle of a messy and protracted short sale negotiation that had been unsalable for nearly a year and took control. She got us to the front of the list of potential buyers. Then, it was Sandra who dealt with the team of people involved: the short-sale negotiator, the bank, the seller’s agent, the home owners association and representatives of those with liens on the property.

I was not privy to the exact details of this negotiation and for that, I am glad. But Sandra dug in and in very little time emerged with excellent results – better than expected, actually. We ended up getting the condo at the price we wanted, cleared of all liens and back payments, and even got a lot of our costs covered by “the other side.” All we did was sign. She was with us for the inspection and stayed afterwards when we met the contractors for some upgrades we wanted done. More than a few of those upgrade were recommended by, you guessed it, Sandra.

All in all, I cannot recommend her highly enough, especially for Internet-savvy customers who know what they want and like to do some initial hunting themselves, or at least with little interference. If you need someone to get you the price and the terms you want on the property you want, you absolutely cannot do better. If you need someone in the late innings to close the deal for you, Sandra is a real stopper. “Bulldog” is a overused and unflattering term, “pit bull” even more so, but that is the image I have of her sitting across the negotiation table. I was in capital sales negotiations for over 20 years and I have to tell you, I wouldn’t want to be sitting across the table from Sandra. I’m glad she was on my team, you’d do very well to have her on yours.

Jim Davis
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
August, 2012

Dear Sandra,Where do we begin to start all the adjectives and superlatives describing you personally and professionally?First of all, you were a stranger to us when we listed our home, in North Port, FL, with you and Keller Williams Realty, located in Punta Gorda. Our home is located in North Port, Florida, but we had no qualms about listing with you, since you do residential and commercial real estate for such a large area. After you called and made an appointment to come to our home to talk about listing, we did not intend to list with a real estate broker at that time. After meeting you and your colleague at Keller Williams, we decided to list anyway. Of all the real estate people who had contacted us while our home was FSBO, you were the only one we felt we wanted to do business with. We were not disappointed at any time during the few months our home was listed.

We had to lower the sale price of our home because the market for homes in this area caused values to decrease. Sandra, you were always on top of things, keeping us informed. Knowing you are very busy would make us think you would not be there for us, however you made us feel like our property was always important to you, and you kept in touch with us often.

Some of the words to describe our experience with you personally and professionally are: kind, generous, positive thinking, supportive, knowledgeable, sincere, organized, informed, connected to clients, down to earth, educated, experienced in business and sales and marketing, has integrity, self starter, energetic, concerned about seller and buyer, just virtually walks on water for ones she is committed to personally and professionally.

Sandra, there are many more good words to describe you, but anyone can get the picture here. I might add that you have been there for us all along the way. Also, you held open house in our home yourself only, and your object was to get our house sold, not to just make new contacts to sell another property. You also had open houses for agents only to get our property noticed and get feed back from the agents about our listing. I believe the fantastic advertising and open houses went a long way to getting our home sold.

Thanks for all the hard work, and finding a good buyer for our home. It paid off for you and Keller Williams and the buyers and us. You are doing well even during this time of real estate slowness. We wish you and the buyers the best always.

Robert & Brenda Y, June 11, 2011

Has always communicated through a very long Short Sale process.

TJ, July 15, 2010

Extremely knowledgeable and professional.

CC, March 15, 2010

We were two days from the Foreclosure auction. When Sandra came on board she explained everything to us, called the bank & got them to agree for a postponement, listed our house and got it sold in 4 days!

JB, Sept. 15, 2010

Calls every week to give us an update on our listing. Did a great job on the Marketing Analysis and explained everything.

RY & BY, Aug. 15, 2010

Additional testimonials are available upon request. Please contact me »