Is Patterson-Schwartz Worth It? An Honest Review

Overall rating | Customer experience | Agent quality | Brand visibility and reach | Service value | Locations | Methodology

Patterson-Schwartz is a real estate company that serves homebuyers and sellers in Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. The brokerage is Delaware's largest independent real estate company, with 10 offices and over 550 agents.

Bottom line: Do we recommend Patterson-Schwartz?

Patterson-Schwartz is a great option for homebuyers and sellers in Delaware. The company offers a good customer experience, high-quality agents, and an excellent local network.

We always recommend interviewing agents before choosing a moving company to work with. When you're buying or selling a house, your agent matters much more than the brand they represent.

Patterson-Schwartz: Our in-depth breakdown

Reputation and customer experience

Patterson-Schwartz seems to have a solid reputation and good customer experience.

The company's customer reviews are mostly favorable. It has a 4.1 rating on Google out of 107 reviews. Patterson-Schwartz locations have separate Better Business Bureau profiles, but all of them are rated A- or A+. That means the company successfully resolves any customer concerns.

Any negative reviews are about Patterson-Schwartz property management services, not its brokerage.

To see if there were common themes in the reviews, we put them through an AI program that identifies emotional language. Here are the themes it found:

Based on this analysis, it seems like customers have great things to say about Patterson-Schwartz agents and customer service.

Agent quality

Patterson-Schwartz Real Estate has a huge network of exceptional agents with lots of experience.

Based on a sample size of 137 agents, the average Patterson-Schwartz agent has 17 years of experience. That’s more than double the industry median of 8 years.

The company’s agents also complete about 11 transactions on average every year. Even though that’s a bit less than the industry average of 12, it’s a great number for a regional real estate company.

Even though Patterson-Schwartz has great agents, we still recommend interviewing the company’s agents in your area. Ask them how long they’ve been working in real estate, how many transactions they complete per year, and how they will help you buy or sell your home.

Brand reach and visibility

Patterson-Schwartz Real Estate has a decent online presence and an incredible network in the market it covers.

The company has roughly 14,544 active listings which attract over 9,100 web visits monthly. "Patterson-Schwartz" and other company-branded terms get over 5,400 Google searches each month.

But Patterson-Schwartz's main strength is its agent network. It has 550 agents and 10 offices throughout Delaware. The network is also strong right along the borders Delaware shares with Pennsylvania and Maryland, so it serves those states too.

When there are lots of agents in an area, they can keep a pulse on the local housing trends. And they can use this tight network to connect buyers and listings much faster.

Service value

Patterson-Schwartz Real Estate seems to provide great services for a decent price. This full-service real estate company has everything you need to buy or sell a house, including:

• MLS listing and syndication across major real estate websites
• Pricing assistance
• A customized marketing plan
• Social media and paid online advertising
• Assistance with negotiations, contracts, and closing

Some agents might provide you with services like professional photography and virtual tours, but those aren’t requirements.

Most comparable regional brokerages offer extra services, like professional photography, virtual tours, or an online platform to review buyer offers — all for the same fixed commission. So you might get more service for the same price elsewhere.

For reference, here’s the average commission in Delaware and Maryland:

» MORE: Average Commission Rates Across the U.S. 2022

Additional info about Patterson-Schwartz Real Estate

General contact info (corporate office)

Other Patterson-Schwartz Real Estate services

For this review, we focused mainly on Patterson-Schwartz Real Estate’s real estate agent services. But the company has two other services you might be interested in:

• Property management
• Relocation

If you need help with property management or relocation, it might seem convenient to use Patterson-Schwartz as a one-stop shop for all your needs. Convenience aside, it’s best to check local rates from other providers first, as you could get a better price elsewhere.

Next steps: Start interviewing agents!

To ensure you find the best agent for you, we recommend interviewing at least 2 to 3 (ideally from different brokerages). We also recommend that you look past big brands and companies and evaluate agents on an individual basis. For guidance on how to interview and choose agents wisely, you can read our guide.

When you’re ready to start finding agents, Clever can give you a headstart: our free agent-matching service will put you into contact with great agents in your area (and you might save some money in the process, too).

Rating methodology

We evaluate brokerages based on four core criteria we think will help readers make informed decisions. We broke those criteria down into discrete metrics so we could make the score as objective as possible. Here’s a quick breakdown of that criteria and methodology: