I had a nice transaction with Rachel. She was excellent at communicating and followed the…read moretimeframe of the RPA. Her clients left the house in good condition and she was a pleasure to work with.

We were looking to buy a single family home in the SF Bay Area for our daughter and husband to rent…read morefrom us. We did an internet search and came across Birnbaum Realty in Benicia, CA. Rachel Birnbaum was the Owner/Broker. She had a number of very good reviews so we called her and spoke for quite a while about what we were looking for and our budget. From the first call, she started working to find us just the right house. Quickly, she came up with a number of options. She actually videotaped homes she previewed which made things easier for us to choose which ones we wanted to visit and further evaluate. In all of our dealings with Rachel, she was always on top of things, keeping in touch on a regular basis and updating any new listings. We eventually expanded our search to include other cities in the East Bay Area. Prior to making our first trip up North, she would give us the pros and cons of each house, and the back story of the cities. She is both an excellent Real Estate Professional, and easy person to work with. We found a house in Brentwood, CA, made an offer which was accepted after some back/forth negotiation. She handled the escrow process flawlessly and the sale went through without a hitch. Rachel gets an A+ from us for the help she provided, including her knowledge of real estate and her mild easy manner. A win-win transaction, so happy we had Rachel on our side. Another quick addition, Rachel is married to a General Contractor, Ron Bruno. Ron actually did the renovation work that was necessary with the Brentwood house. His work and the subs he hired were also excellent. The work was completed on time and within budget. They are truly a great pair to work with from start to finish.

Long story medium short. My TIC building partner in an SF duplex needed to sell. I have no idea how…read moreshe found Ren Grandahl, although I heard he was recommended by the owner's friend on the East Coast where she had relocated. That's how to pick an agent? Owner listed the place at $930K, way out of line. Mr. Grendahl should have shown her comps and counseled her. Perhaps he did, but overpriced property rarely sells; it hurts. Two or three price reductions later, two offers were made that apparently the owner turned down. These reductions also reduced the perceived value of my portion of the building. Ren should have involved me, my attorney says, but no. This all took Ren a YEAR to accomplish virtually nothing. A YEAR of sporadic open houses. A YEAR of occasionally not showing up for advertised open houses, or not advertising open houses at all. Their web site was regularly out of date. Near the end of that year, I had called the stager to offer to rent the staged furnishings myself so her place would look good. The stager agreed, and I sent him a check, but Ren poked his nose into it and claimed that was illegal (how exactly?), and advised the stager to clear his nice stuff out. I believed him too, but my real-estate attorney said that's not so. Gee, thanks Ren, it cost me $3500 to RE-stage the place because of your bull-headed attitude when I could have made things easier for all concerned. Where's that at? Just destructive. The owner was broke, underemployed, under water, and wasn't paying her mortgage or insurance, and couldn't afford the 5% commission. She would have killed me with a thousand cuts and I'd lose all. After some stressful legal maneuvering, Ren convinced the owner to grant her place to me via a Grant Deed and my foregiveness of all her debt -- BUT he wanted half of the sales commission in exchange! For what? A YEAR of total failure? Y'all, that's almost $11K, when MY brokers advertised and showed the place and MY brokers sold it almost immediately. (See my reviews of Jesse Fowler and Pete Brannigan, coming soon, who had to eat half the sales commission. Now THAT'S service!) This episode was a wasteful and costly total DISASTER! (Except Ren got to line his big pockets.) And don't be in the same room when Ren flips to angry mode. The above is all true. Negative stars are in order for negative results.

I was looking for a place at the St. Regis and Rob was great in helping me with a rental I wanted…read morein the building... he was always very responsive to my emails and phone calls... and was very, very patient acting as a mediator between the owner of the unit and me... Unfortunately, the owner turned out to be crazy and very vexatious....and she pulled out of the lease four days before I was supposed to move! (you know... since its a great housing market and all, it makes sense to change your mind at the last second and sell your place after trying to rent your place for 8 months...ehh) Needless to say, my frustration was immense... and Rob sent me a bottle of champagne as a token of good will, even though it wasn't his fault... and he also quickly reimbursed me for my deposit....very nice guy

My husband and I first met Noelle to sell our home, we knew from that first meeting she would be…read morethe best person to help us! She really impressed us regarding her knowledgeable of real estate laws, market trends, staging recommendations, and so much more. In addition to working with Noelle, her team that we worked with that included Terri (who helped with scheduling showings) and JaNel (who helps with disclosures and paperwork) were a so easy to work with and was always receptive to answer any questions or concerns we had. We loved Noelle and her team so much we also hired her to purchase our new home too! When selling or purchasing a home, it can be very stressful but Noelle had made it the best experience! We are truly thankful to her and her team and are incredibly happy in our new home!

My wife and I met with multiple agents to sell our house. From the moment we met Noelle, we knew…read moreshe would be the best agent to have selling our house. She did not pressure us and listened to our needs. She has a great team around her to make the process smooth. Noelle was very receptive to our phone calls and texts, and would call us with any pertinent information. Noelle is also very knowledgable on current laws, the surrounding market, and knowing what buyers are looking for. She is also very personable, making the stressful endeavor of selling a house a much easier process. We liked her business practice so much, that we were fortunate to have her represent us as our buying agent in the area we moved to as well. Overall, Noelle is an A+ broker.

Sold my house using Lynne and not a great experience. When they needed something to move the sale…read morealong I'd get emails and calls from multiple people in her office. However, when it came to keeping me up to date with what is happening forget about it. I'd go weeks without any communication on what was going on, but then all of a sudden they needed me to sign something and it was like the world should stop for them. At one point I was not certain that I would accept the terms of the sale and received very nasty emails from people that worked for her including telling me the other party would sue me if I backed out. It was very evident that they could care less about what was important to me or that it was a good deal for me, they wanted their commission check.

Based upon my experience with Lynne French, I would never, ever use her for a real estate…read moretransaction. When we visited the open house, she answered our questions. We had a particular question about building a pool in the backyard that she said she would get back to us on, but she did not. Not a big deal though. We ended up purchasing the home. When escrow closed and we went to move in, the sellers movers had damaged parts of the floor and other areas, but what was the most shocking was that the bookcases in the office that were advertised as built-ins by Ms. French were gone! When we contacted her about this she said it was a misunderstanding between her and her seller. Ok, those things can happen, but they certainly weren't our fault, so Ms. French or her sellers should have either put the bookcases back in, since the flyers specifically stated the bookcases were built into the office or compensate us for new bookcases. She refused. I even found bookcases that were not as nice at Costco and offered to take those instead, if they didn't want to reinstall the "built-ins." She still refused. Eventually, after much back and forth, Ms. French offered to spilt the cost of them. This is totally unacceptable. This greedy woman made a $36,750 commission on this sale, but was haggling over approximately an $850 issue. We didn't ask for anything else from the seller during escrow except for some extremely minor repairs that cost about $400. This extreme greed really showed me her true character. I will never do business with her again and I make sure any friends in Clayton that are considering using her know about this experience. There are many real estate agents that specialize in Clayton, why settle for someone who is so greedy and short-sighted?

I have purchased and sold multiple homes, and the best real estate agent that I have ever worked…read morewith is Jamie Abitia. The experience I had recently selling my home surpassed all of my expectations, as Jamie is a person of quality who cares about her customers. She is very knowledgeable, on top of every detail, takes initiative, and excellent at staging and presenting a home. Jamie by nature has a way of putting people at ease, and making the experience enjoyable. Jamie does not stop. She is available morning, noon and night, seven days a week! (Sorry, but she needs a life! lol) She views her assignments as personal challenge, and adroitly uses the vast knowledge & resources of her support team at Maddox. She anticipates possible pitfalls, addressing them before they become a problem. In fact, whenever something came up that related to inspections, permits, power, plumbing, painting, home repair, electrical, landscaping, or staging; her phone was out as she was making a call to someone who could promptly attend to any concern. She is also very tech savvy, and utilizes this to make transactions easy and convenient for her customers. Jamie is gracious, patient, understanding, and helpful throughout a process that is normally very stressful. She also has a great sense of humor! Meeting Jamie was like opening your first bottle of champagne; knowing her was like drinking it. I am grateful for the marvelous service that Jamie and her team have provided. Even though I had never met Jamie before I hired her, I now consider her a trusted & valued friend. You are in good hands if you select Jamie Abitia as your agent! Sincerely, Stuart Damon

Katrena prior is the best real estate agent ever. Period. 1…read more Consistent 2. Ethical 3. Enthusiastic/great energy 4. Knowledgeable 5. Patient 6. Great teacher She definitely adds warmth to this business and was extremely helpful given my limited knowledge as a first time home buyer I love my new (recently remodeled) home and I'm thankful for her subtle push to make me as competitive as possible in this market

We were so pleased with the services provided by Karen Moss of Compass Real Estate in our recent…read moresale of our family home. We had talked with her a year or two prior to the pandemic but were not yet ready to sell the house. Later when ready we contacted her to put our home on the market over a Zoom meeting during the pandemic we wanted to get going quickly and she responded with appropriate speed and set up a timeline and plan. We had to shift gears due to a family emergency and she did not pressure us but readjusted the timeline to fit our needs. There were many problems with the house and she helped advise and troubleshoot these. We did not want to do extensive repairs and chose to sell mostly as is, however she carefully advised us of some things which were worthwhile to improve the marketability of the home. She had great references of people to help get things done at a reasonable cost, and scheduled services for us when we were all in agreement since we were selling from out of the area. She oversaw the work and when cleaning wasn't quite up to par, she went herself and found a way to clean it. We were then able to ask the cleaning crew to use her technique to get the job done better while still under their 24 hour guarantee of satisfaction! She was able to carefully think through potential problems well ahead of time and keep us on track. She has a good sense of the market. Karen was personable and easy to work with, she had great contacts for support of the processes needed. She was responsive and easy to reach by phone or email and consistently called back if she wasn't able to answer when we called. She was our boots on the ground since we were far afield and even stepped up for things like resetting the electronics for the sprinkler controls as our needs changed. My sister and I highly recommend her without reservation!

It was great to work with Karen as we bought our first home! She was so responsive to our many…read moreemails. We had many questions about the process of buying a house and different homes we were looking at as first time home buyers. Karen always quickly responded to us with useful advice and information. She always had information about listings and could give us advice about areas and what was going on with certain homes. She also recommended great contractors. We used her recommendations for an electrician and plumber, and we are very satisfied with the job they did. Without those connections, we would have been a little lost trying to find help with our house. We are really satisfied with Karen as a realtor and would definitely recommend her to anyone looking to buy a house.

What a pleasure working with Maribel and Jennifer. I appreciate all the hard work they've done…read morefor me. In a tough market, they were Abel to get this house listed, professionally photographed and pending in 2 weeks. There is no way it would have been done without them. Thanks a bunch!!!!

It is a great pleasure working with Jennifer & Maribel. We find them to be straightforward,…read moretrustworthy, professional, very patient, and most of all - a really competent team. They work really well together, and one of them is always there to either answer you're questions, show you a property, host an open house, or or liaison with your finance team etc..; leaving you with a seamless/first class service for your real estate needs. In our honest opinion and experience, it's so much better having the both of them working for us as a team, than working with a solitary agent. We are soon to be repeat customers; after selling our home earlier this year with them, we are now in the process of finding our next home with Jennifer & Maribel again. They have been there for us in-between as well, helping us with our current rental/housing situation. Earlier this year (2022), even as the market was starting to shift from a seller's to a buyer's market. With a little bit of patience on our side, and lots of hard work/effort on Jennifer & Maribel's side, we got the price that we wanted to sell our house for (it beat our expectations). After the sale, Jennifer and Maribel managed to arrange a rent-back from the buyer (when it wasn't necessary for them to agree to it). Jennifer & Maribel then also found us our current rental (in a very convenient location) after our rent-back was over. Their combined knowledge of the area has been very helpful to us in a practical way. Since we are also looking for our next home with Jennifer & Maribel, one thing is for certain, they are on top of the market and our needs! It is almost like having your own team of personal assistants to guide you through the process, as they will keep you updated with new listings, and even homes that are yet to even be listed on the market. We would also like to reiterate Jennifer & Maribel's patience with us. They have been there to promptly answer all of our multiple questions/concerns, and have always given us straightforward and sound advice. At this point, we have looked at a lot of houses, but their patience with us, and also professionalism has always been consistent and greatly appreciated. Jennifer & Maribel are a distinguished team, who we would recommend to close family/friends, and as a matter of fact, anyone in need of a really great team of agents to be on their side, for all of their real estate needs!

Stephanie is the best! I found my dream home in Sebastopol with Stephanie's help. She has…read moretremendous knowledge and supported me navigating what became a bit of a challenging close for the seller. She is a delight to work with, professional and fun. She will be my 1st call for any future real estate transactions I engage in.

Stephanie is a wonderful agent who helped me buy my first home in SF and then sell it 12 years…read morelater. She is incredibly knowledgable, responsive, and proactive and made the entire process of selling my home very seamless. I'm grateful to have had her support both when I purchased the home and also sold the same so many years later! Thank you for all your help Stephanie!