Evusto | Low Commission Real Estate - St. Catharines, Ontario

Renata H.

I had a great experience selling my house with Martin Smith. From start to finish, the process was incredibly smooth and stress-free. Martin is very knowledgeable about the market, and his expertise showed at every step. He explained everything clearly, answered all my questions with patience, and always kept me informed. I felt supported and confident throughout the entire journey.

Thanks to Martin’s professionalism and dedication, what could have been a complicated process turned out to be seamless and even enjoyable. I highly recommend Martin to anyone looking to sell their home — you’ll be in excellent hands!

Vikrant B.

Working with Martin Smith to buy our first home in Brantford was an absolutely wonderful experience. He was incredibly helpful, knowledgeable, and made the entire process smooth and stress-free. He was always available for showings, and we really appreciated how clearly he explained everything.
As first-time buyers, we had so many questions, and he was incredibly patient and made sure we understood each step. We highly recommend Martin to anyone looking to buy a home.

JACKIE L.

Martin has been instrumental in selling two of our properties within one to two weeks. He helped us to price them well and we were very satisfied with the price we got from the sales, especially in this tough market. He is well versed as a real estate agent and is good at convincing and communicating value of a property on sale to the buyers. He is reliable and we could depend on him all the time.

Wade B.

Martin was a true professional. We used him on two moves on both
the selling and buying of homes. We are extremely happy with the savings, negotiations and selection of these properties. Highly recommend!

Brett H.

We had an excellent experience when working with Martin. He was very understanding of our situation, professional, and in tune with the market. We will be recommending him to our friends and family!

Bojan M.

Buckle up, this one is long. The tl;dr for those with crispy fried dopamine receptors: "If you know what you want and what you're doing, Martin is The Man to work with." - Freshly Minted FTHBs

Our journey began in late summer of 2023, when we began looking at houses and needed a buyer's agent to help arrange viewings. We had a fairly clear idea of what type of support and services we were looking for, and what we were not looking for. Our initial viewings were through some default agent assigned to us from the listings site. We could really tell he was still in shock and mourning that the market wasn't simply handing him a weekly tithe for showing up. No resentment was thrown at us personally, but it wasn't a pleasant experience either. Buyers have been processing that grief and betrayal for a decade now, so maybe some empathy died along the way but we were looking to do business and not therapy. And so we shopped around. Out of almost a dozen different agents we spoke with, Martin immediately stood out for his straightforward communication and relaxed demeanour. What ultimately put him at the very top was his willingness to listen and be flexible to our needs. At no point did we feel he was pushing an agenda, opinion or service we did not explicitly request.

Unfortunately, despite a handful of problem-free viewings, our house hunt was put on early pause largely due to complications on our end. However, during these viewings, Martin was always on time, always professional, and did everything by the book. No rushing and no hustle. This left us with a positive impression, and when we resumed our house hunting journey this past summer, he was the first and only person we reached out to. There was no back and forth dance, hesitation or complication involved - it was more or less 'no problem, I got you'.

What followed was rather tactless on our part, having requested the first four viewings *directly on Canada Day* and with fairly short notice. Still, Martin made it happen without fuss, showed up on time, and simply trusted that we weren't trying to waste his quality family time.

Through the these viewings, we re-affirmed that our top two picks were worth pursuing and the bottom two that showed some initial promise were not. However, we also had an unorthodox strategy in mind by aggressively bidding on our close second favourite in the hopes of a higher value purchase, knowing the chances of success were much lower. Again, Martin went along with our wishes and supported us without trouble or judgement.

When that strategy inevitably fell through with the '2nd choice home', we immediately pivoted to our top home pick with the same aggressive strategy of bidding the absolute maximum amount we thought the home was worth to us. Once again, Martin turned around that second offer for us quickly and well into the evening. This time, the opportunity was more realistic and the sellers indicated some interest, just not at the price we initially offered - exactly as we expected. We had to do some back and forth but otherwise stuck to our principles of 'the first price is our top price and our last price'. Martin never questioned our approach or pushed us to abandon this principle, which we laid out for him in advance. The selling agent, as expected, tried to apply the pressure to stairstep towards the middle ground on price and we weren't having any of it. Martin leaned into our strategy, shrugged it off, and made it clear that this one was out of his control to influence. He knew the game we were playing and directly supported our hardball negotiation tactics along the way, even through the inspection waiver terms. Someone had to fold, and at the 11th hour (but more like 1:30pm), it was clear it would be the sellers.

Martin has been a fantastic agent to work with for a multitude of reasons, but the results speak for themselves. We got our forever home at the great price we wanted with all the conditions of sale we sought, and not a slice of bread extra. Well done!