If I could give this service 0 stars I would. Now I normally don't like giving bad reviews, but the lack of good customer service and poor communication is just astounding. MORE IMPORTANTLY THOUGH, I would like to warn potential clients to beware of Jeanique Cook!!! To begin, navigating the Bay Area housing market is already difficult enough-- especially if you're a college student. Rather than demonstrating common human empathy and willingness to work with us, Jeanique took advantage of our desperation. Not only did she fail to communicate with us, she was extremely rude at times where she did. How did she get hired?? Is this really what kind of image the company wants to portray? Rudeness and inadequacy? Furthermore, not only did she tell us to proceeded with the application (which, by the way, $42 per person and summing up to $336 in total), she didn't communicate with us for two weeks and we found out that they were proceeding with someone else instead?? Why would you tell us it would be okay to proceed with the application, have our co-signers also pay a $42 fee, and then reject us because someone else is more "qualified"? Jeanique didn't even communicate with us to let us know if anything was lacking to make us "less qualified." Now it's already almost May and we're stuck in a terrible position because we were under the impression that we would be accepted. I'm down $84 and I don't have housing. Oh and the website is absolutely garbage as well. You can't even go back to edit information and it's extremely confusing. Overall: agents need better training or review, website is garbage, poor communication, and company clearly doesn't care about their clients. I feel like I got scammed. read more

The Bay Area housing market is difficult and expensive, but my experience was made even worse when working with this company. I had a poor experience working with Jeanique Cook. First of all, she was extremely, EXTREMELY rude to me and my friend. When I was asking her questions via text, she got impatient and barely explained and added, "SIMPLE." As if housing in the Bay Area is not already confusing and overwhelming enough, she made me feel even dumber for wanting clarity on the application process that I was paying $84 for. That incident was absolutely uncalled for and shows what type of agents this company hires. If you do not have the patience to work with college students and young adults, then do not work as an agent in the Berkeley area. Second, she lied to me and my housemates by telling us to wait before applying to ensure that someone else "more qualified" would not apply. When we got the green light, she told us to move forward with applying. The fee was $42/person. Although that cost was already a bit high for applications, that was fine because we just needed housing at that point. We waited nearly 2 weeks for a response with no communication within that time frame, just for her to tell us they were moving forward with someone else. Basically, Jeanique Cook failed to communicate diligently and honestly, and now we are in a bad position to find housing for the summer because she gave us the impression that we would be accepted. Listen, I understand if there are other factors to consider, but have some empathy and understand that we are in a tough market. Look out for your clients and tell them to keep looking if your company is considering someone else, so we can take matters into our own hands and keep looking around. Agents should be communicative, respectful, and patient. Jeanique was none of those things and made us feel uncomfortable and disrespected in multiple ways. read more

Unprofessional... I called for an appointment with one of their agents and not only did she come late, she was extremely vague when explaining procedures. DO NOT RECOMMEND read more

Navigation on the site was very hard and unorganized. Fix it. + poor customer service

Navigating the current real estate market in the East Bay is no easy task, and unless you have an extremely savvy, experienced and personable real estate agent the whole endeavor can be altogether depressing. There is a person who is up to this challenge however, and his name is Kim Marienthal. Kim is a real estate agent who can makes your dreams a reality. My mother and I had the tremendous good fortune of coming across Kim as we were seeking a short-term rental in San Francisco. We had just moved from Los Angeles and we were interested in buying a home in the San Francisco Bay Area. We realized a short-term rental would be the best way to situate ourselves while searching for our dream home. Kim, as it turns out, was our landlord, and when we discovered that he was a realtor specializing in the East Bay we realized that we might have stepped into something very good indeed. During our first meeting with Kim at his office in Berkeley we immediately felt comfortable with him. We spent over two hours with him as he got to know us and understand what type of home we were looking for. We looked at listings on the screen set up in his conference room and we set out that afternoon to actually "view" some of the listings that might fit our criteria. Kim is also very pleasant to spend time with, and as anyone who has spent any time looking for a home, you inevitably spend a significant amount of time with your agent. In any event, after meeting with Kim in his office on a Friday afternoon, we took Saturday off from our home search. We then emailed Kim and told him that we wanted to venture out to Oakland on our own to some open houses and his response was extremely supportive. He sent us a list of open houses and encouraged us to get back in touch with him if we saw a property that we liked. That Sunday we fell in love with our current home. As soon as we walked through the entranceway we were under its spell. That night we emailed Kim and he phoned us and we came up with a strategy. He would go with us to view the property the next day and he was already in touch with the real estate agent to find out information regarding how many offers they were expecting. After viewing the house on Monday with Kim, we discussed our strategy for placing an offer on the home. Kim's experience was pivotal in positioning us well with the Sellers. He answered all of our questions with tremendous ease and made us feel comfortable with our decision. And in fact that night he telephoned us back to let us know that our offer had been accepted. Looking back on the process, I have no doubt in my mind that Kim's expertise was a crucial element in our purchase of this home. In a real estate market of surging home prices, extremely limited inventory and bidding wars for homes, there is no one like Kim Marienthal to help you find your very own dream home. read more

Three words ... one name: BOBBIE C. GIARRATANA. Here's the thing about Bobbie -- her integrity, determination, intelligence, diplomacy, and kindness fly in the face of what you might have come to expect from a real estate agent. Bobbie represented my sweetie and me, when we bought our house in September of 2000. In the frenzied real estate market that prevailed then, replete with multiple and "over asking" offers, Bobbie managed to get us a ratified "under asking" purchase price, AND cash back on closing! We happily still live in the house we purchased in 2000. Since our purchase, Bobbie has been unstinting in making herself available to discuss the market, the value of renovations, comps, etc., whenever we've asked. We've received wonderful post-sale support from her. A number of our friends have used Bobbie as their real estate agent, too, thanks to our recommendation. All of them have bought or sold their houses with her, and have raved about her. I just can't say enough good things about Ms. Bobbie C. Giarrantana, realtor par excellence! read more

I closed on a new house with Bobbie Giarratana in July 2014. We are relatively young (mid-20s) first-time home buyers, in a very hot real estate market. She is awesome. Early on she spent plenty of time helping to educate us on how the entire process goes and works, what we'll need to do, and so on. She was also good at helping us figure out how to put together the most effective package for offers, including quality offer letters, her talking to our mortgage banker in advance, and moving quickly when we were interested. She's extremely responsive -- replies to emails quickly, proactive about texts and phone calls as well, and understood how we wanted to communicate with her (email first, then text, then call, in our case). Once we had an accepted offer on a house, she went above-and-beyond to make sure the rest of the process went quite smoothly. It was a *very* old house (built somewhere around the 1870s) and while it has been well-maintained, there were a few "oddities" that made us want to have a number of bids and supplemental looks done beyond just the standard inspection. She arranged them all, some of which we attended (of course including the inspection), some of which we just got bids and quotes for afterwards and she set up for us. For example, we told her exactly what we wanted a bid on during the inspection period (post-accepted offer) in regards to the plumbing systems, and she got that done -- finding a contractor, having him come and prepare a bid -- without us present. She was also very accommodating to our schedules in general, including letting us pick the times we needed for each step in the process, ranging from an 8 AM walk-through to a 5 PM inspection to a 7 PM meeting, and working with our title company to get a notary to come to us at work. One thing I hope she continues to improve on: Less able with technology than some agents might be; but she gets everything done perfectly well. Overall -- I would certainly recommend Bobbie to anyone looking to buy a house in the Oakland or Berkeley area. For reference, we bought a property in Old Oakland between $400k and $1M, and also looked in Temescal. We used a different realtor we'd also recommend (and I have a review for) for our housing search in San Francisco. read more

This review is for Kim Marienthal who expertly guided my husband and I through the purchase of our first home. We bought in early 2007 and we were referred to him by trusted friends. In our first meeting, at his office, we discussed what we wanted (realistically) and what we could afford (and he didn't scoff at our budget). He looked up properties on the computer in the conference room while we sat next to him and with our approval, gave us a printout of places to check out. Kim doesn't pressure you, he listens, he calmly answers all of your questions, he is always available by phone and actually answered every time that I called, and he has many, many years of experience in the East Bay. He's friendly, fair and relaxed and he knows his way around all the laws and intricacies of Berkeley. We were very impressed with him. As for the actual office and staff, we never felt entirely charmed by anyone other than Kim. The staff seemed disinterested, the conference room was not entirely tidy and there was a totally avoidable snafu with our signed documents by the receptionist / assistant. read more

KIM MARIENTHAL came highly recommended to us from someone we knew in town and we could not be more pleased!! He was easy going, professional, available for every question we had.. and there were many! He is an overall wonderful guy and a top notch agent. Don't think twice before working with him if you are looking to buy a home. He answered every call, text and email promptly. He was flexible and spontaneous when it came to showing properties to us, and very patient through the process. He really stood by us and guided us through a very tricky market. We always felt how invested he was in helping us find and secure the right place for our family and we are so grateful to him. We just bought our home on the Albany/El Cerrito border in December 2013, peak of the market! It was a tough and very competitive market to enter as first time homebuyers who were new to town. Kim was so insightful and generous with his time and knowledge. He was patient as we learned our way around town and finally narrowed in on what we wanted. He helped to walk us through the process of making an offer, even helping us to navigate our own budget and set us up with wonderful mortgage brokers etc., and then was equally supportive through closing, helping us to understand all the paperwork and never belittled our naiveté or skimmed over our concerns. He is the kind of guy who goes above and beyond which seems rare these days. He is a veteran real estate agent in the Bay Area and every sellers agent we came across knew him well and fondly. We always felt we were in good hands, and we were! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! read more

Seeing as how I've never rented from Kim I can't comment on that, but as a realtor I have to say he is REALLY REALLY good. I was purchasing a property (my first house) and there ended up being countless negotiations with the seller, as well as difficulty on my end nailing down the financing. I must have called him a hundred times with this question or that, this concern or that - coming up with game plans to overcome the varying obstacles. I had much anxiety. I have to say he worked his ASS OFF, talked me through every step, steered me away from some bad decisions, and the deal finally went through. Solid five stars. Will use him for sure if I ever need another realtor. read more

I worked exclusively with Kim and Barbara Marienthal when purchasing my first home. They went beyond the call of duty numerous times, offered me great advice constantly, and were warm friendly people. I am fairly sure that I would never have gotten the place I wanted with anyone else. They were always available to answer any question I had, and always returned every phone call. I cannot recommend them any higher. read more

I am selling my condo. Margaret Price called on Sunday morning wanting to show it to her clients, and requested a 3-4pm appointment. Of course I agreed. I want to sell as soon as possible. Even though my pregnant wife and I were very comfortable wearing PJ's and watching movies on our only day off together. So, I spent a couple hours cleaning and staging the place for viewing. After a shower and putting on something presentable, at 2:45 I turned on all the lights, lit a candle, turned on some relaxing music, and kicked my 3rd Trimester wife out of her own home. After waiting a painfully long hour, I texted and called Margaret. No answer. I had specifically asked her to please let me know if they weren't going to make it, and she said, "Of course!" Many agents have done this since I put my property on the market 4 weeks ago, and I'm sick of it. So, I kept calling until she had no choice but to talk to me. She said, "Oh. Didn't you get my message?" A bold faced LIAR. An INCONSIDERATE and wholly uUNPROFESSIONAL person. And she's not the only one. I will not let you people steal precious time from me and my family again. Not without consequence. Just wanted to let you know the type of people you may be doing business with. read more

Barbara was really quite rude when I asked to be removed from her mailing list. She said she sent to everyone in the neighborhood, which seems wasteful since anyone whose address includes an apartment number in this neighborhood is NOT looking to buy a $1.6 million dollar house. She hung up on me. read more

Kathie Longinotti at Coldwell Banker recently helped my fiancee and I purchase our first home together. As our agent, she was friendly, efficient, and transparent about every step of the process. For our financing, we used a national lender instead of a local one. At the beginning of our purchase process, Kathie warned us about the possible hurdles and slowdowns we could potentially face from our lender. Her predictions were 100% accurate - we faced all sorts of snafus along the way. Kathie patiently and happily worked with us to resolve each issue from the lender as it came. With her help, we were able to meet all of contingency deadlines and successfully close our purchase. We cannot say enough nice things about Kathie. Throughout our purchase process, she was available seven days a week, night and day. Kathie made it seem like us getting our house was her full-time #1 priority. For any future real estate transaction in the Bay Area, Kathie will be the first person we call. She was a pleasure to work with. read more

Would give 0 starts if possible. Experience was terrible. Marc Guay was the agent of the seller and the experience was very bad after the sale was completed. The seller had left TONS of junk in the garage: a very old fridge, an even older stove and a closed that was about to fall apart. Right after moving in I had to travel for work. I called Marc and told him how all this junk was left behind. He said I should call Goodwill and ask them to pick them stuff up. He said IF THEY DO NOT PICK IT UP, HE WILL ARRANGE FOR A JUNK REMOVAL SERVICE TO GET RID OF THE JUNK. He claimed that they had left the stuff behind for us to use. They were so old that Goodwill was not willing to make a trip to our place for them. After I retuned from my business trip, I called Marc again and told him that I had no luck with Goodwill. He now said that he never told me that he will arrange for the junk to be removed. He said there must be garbage removal services that I could go to... Yeah, thanks for the obvious tip. I guess by his standards and work ethics, it is normal for his clients to leave behind absolute garbage in houses that they sell. From my experience, Marc is a dishonest person who will lie to get out of work that clearly needed to be done prior to selling the house. I do not recommend working with him in any capacity. read more

This past year I had the tremendously good fortune of working with Kim Marienthal on my first ever real estate purchase. He was incredibly patient and knowledgable in helping me dive into the world of investment real estate, always honoring my questions, concerns and ideas. He spent time showing me multifarious options in several parts of California, and while Kim encouraged me and shared his opinions, he never pushed a sale or tried to "seal the deal" before the time was right. Ultimately, with Kim's guidance, I was able to purchase a large investment property. Even through escrow, Kim went above and beyond to ensure that all details were in order and that hiccups with banking, frustrated sellers, etc... were handled effectively and with class. Kim never backed away. He really made this deal happen. I cannot recommend Kim Marienthal highly enough. He is professional, knowledgable, kind, open to sharing his own insights and the person to have on your side when it comes to closing a deal. I thank him for helping me enter the world of investment properties... and for continuing, even now, to guide me as I transition through this new process. read more

There isn't enough words to describe Maria Artle and how great of a job she did for me.One of the worst buyers markets where most Realtors are giving up,quitting to find alternative employment. She stuck by me and found me a home.She is a very sweet,hard working cutie with a winning attitude to never give up and find you a dream home.I'm very thankful to have had her and can't thank her enough.You would make a great decision if you did the same,she is the greatest! read more

I just bought a home with agent Adrienne Broche from Coldwell Banker. She was recommended to me from a friend. I am a first time home buyer in my 40's, and in the interesting position of being a mature, successful woman who knows what she wants in most situations, yet completely new to the home buying process. Tricky waters to navigate, to be sure. Adrienne was absolutely wonderful. She explained when I needed to understand, stepped back and followed when I wanted to take the lead, and provided sound advice when I needed her experienced perspective. She is highly ethical, down-to-earth, and full of heart. I trust her completely, and would recommend her to anyone I care about. Also, she suggested I work with the in-house mortgage guy, Kenny Leather. Kenny comes across as fast-talking and slick, but he is actually a heart-centered family man with good intentions. He worked hard to get me the best rate, and I recommend him as well. I am very pleased with my experience, and ended up with the home of my dreams. Thank you, Adrienne! read more

Just purchased our first home in the NOBE area with the steadfast and expert assistance of Kim Marienthal. Honestly, can't say enough good things about Kim. We spoke with a number of agents at the beginning of the process and Kim without a doubt surpassed them all. Thorough, knowledgeable, patient - Kim is a true professional who made this substantial process a pleasure. Look no further than www.marienthal.com. read more

I just bought a multifamily apartment building in Berkeley with the help of realtor Kim Marienthal. He's insightful, very experienced, and thoroughly professional. If I were interested in selling this building or buying another, I would definitely call Kim. read more