Michele Trueba = Worst Nashville Realtor

Michele Trueba
(Linkedin Photo)

Never before have I used my blog to write about a bad experience I have had, but since all content in this blog is based solely on my opinion and personal experiences I thought it would be a great place to share why I believe Michele Trueba has to be one of the worst and most unreliable realtors in Nashville, Tennessee.

First and foremost, I think it is important to say that I believe a person’s character can instantly be defined by their willingness to apologize when they have messed up or been unprofessional.  Someone who has a chance to make things right when they are clearly in the wrong but refuses, simply holds a personality trait that many of us would call “prideful” and “arrogant”.   I am normally a very forgiving person and believe that you should give others the benefit of the doubt; however, this woman (Michele) has made me so angry with her unprofessional qualities that I decided to take some time out of my day to share why NO ONE in Nashville (buyer or seller) should deal with Ms. Trueba, and why you should consider alternative realtors.

Let’s consider some facts….  I have not always disliked Michele, in fact, I had my first experience with her a little under two years ago when I rented a sweet apartment in Downtown Nashville.  Michele was the agent representing my landlord, and although I did not have much communication with her at the time, I did not have any issues.. She got her money and really that is all that she cared about in the transaction.  But heck, nothing is wrong with that as long as you are acting professionally in the process.

Fast forward about a year… I believe in networking so when my friend approached me mentioning she was looking for an interior design internship in Nashville, I instantly thought of asking Michele Trueba (a realtor) if any of her friends/connections might have any openings… To my delight, she responded with a very promising letter saying she actually did know some IDs and would pass my friend’s resume over to them… GREAT!  Then Michele followed up once again saying, better yet, I would love to sit down and personally meet/interview your friend.  PERFECT!

I got permission from Michele to give her e-mail address to my friend Ashley and asked her to e-mail…  Ashley wrote a very professional message to Michele very quickly after our original conversation and even offered to meet Michele…  And then… Michele replied with…  Nothing.. She simply did not respond.. WEIRD!! But things do come up… So I messaged Ms. Trueba to follow up a few days later… Again… Nothing…  So I gave Ashley the phone number to reach Michele… Called.. No response… So I called… Left a message, Michele was TOTALLY and RUDELY ignoring our communication after she clearly had stated she would like to meet Ashley.   After about two weeks of trying to reach out to Michele who had obviously given us a misleading hope, we decided to leave well enough along and move on… The sad part is, if the internship opportunity fell through all Michele should have done was respond apologizing saying the position was no longer open and frankly we would have no problems.   Instead she decided to go the unprofessional route and simply ignore us, leaving Ashley clueless on the situation…  Ashley was even going to use Michele to find a place to live when she started the internship.

Needless to say…  Michele was all talk in this situation and it really made me angry.. All she needed to do was SIMPLY apologize and be professional!

Fast forward six more months…. My landlord e-mailed telling me that he wanted to show my unit to a potential buyer..  Michele was going to be the one showing it… He told me not to worry, the unit was not publicly listed on the market BUT Ms. Trueba approached him with someone who may be interested… AHHH… Go figure.. Michele was alive after all.. Any time $$ is involved for her she is on top of things..  Well sort of.

I was told that Michele would knock on my door and talk to me for a second and then I would leave so they could show the unit to a potential buyer… I was ok with this.. I actually thought she was wanting to apologize… 10 minutes passed, 15 minutes, 30 minutes… Finally well past the time she was supposed to meet me, KNOCK, KNOCK, I open the door and Michele is standing there with the potential buyers and awkwardly asked me to leave (like I was the one in the fault)… The only thing I was guilty of was wasting valuable time waiting for Michele to come up like she told me… GUESS what…  Don’t believe anything she says… I’ve learned that lesson.

The next day I was out of town but I was told Michele was going to show my apartment that morning… Again, without any notification I noticed she was late again when viewing the security tape.  Soooo… Unprofessional..

Another time, although there are laws protecting renters and giving us right to reasonable notice.. I received an e-mail at like 10PM that was automated ASKING me to confirm that it was ok for her to show my unit in well less than 24 hours… Michele Trueba didn’t even have the audacity to send me a personal e-mail, she used an automated e-mail so that she would not have to interact with me directly because she knew she had done me wrong..

The stories go on and on..  Michele scheduled a viewing of the apartment to some out-of-towners without giving me notice,  unfortunately by the time I was notified I was out of town and would not have time to get the apartment in showing condition.. So I asked they reschedule to the next afternoon..   Ironically, I received a phone call from my concierge who asked me what the situation was.. He had some guests who had driven from out of town to see the unit and Michele never showed up… Apparently Ms. Trueba had left a message to the potential buyers but they had not received it, and instead of doing the right thing and showing up to meet the potential buyers since she hadn’t reached them… She did it the Michele Trueba way and “just didn’t show up” leaving them wondering what the heck was going on.

There are many more stories like this that I could share but you get the point… Michele is very unreliable.  Once they finally found a buyer for the place and I moved out (in under 2 days), Michele was supposed to meet me at 5:30pm to bring me a check from the buyers because they had bought out my lease.  TICK.. TOCK… TICK.. TOCK… After waiting in an empty apartment for 45 minutes Michele finally showed up once again in the Michele old fashion REALLY late way!  No worries… No one else has a life or schedule but you Michele… All is good..

I learned a valuable lesson myself early in life, in the business world OR even in life in general… You have to treat people with the respect that they deserve and not have the “I’m the only one that matters mentality”… FAILURE to treat people with respect may not backfire at first but eventually you are going to treat the wrong person poorly and they are going to share their experience with the world..

The sad part is… This could have all been avoided with a simple apology.   But sometimes, prideful people just can not swallow those words.

I HIGHLY recommend to everyone looking to do business with Michele Trueba that you reconsider.  I personally will never buy a house or allow her to sell a house for me… That is one customer lost Ms. Trueba, several thousand dollars out the window…  There are many nice realtors in Nashville, everyone is replaceable..  And I highly suggest you look elsewhere than Michele based on my personal experience.

I welcome any response by Michele and will share directly with my readers.