My husband and I were first-time home buyers and were looking for an apartment in the Boston/Brookline area. We changed realtors a couple of times, and were so lucky to finally find Shira! The other realtors didn't have the intuition to help us look for what we really want. Shira is not just someone with a great personality but she also has a broad knowledge of all aspects of real estate. Working with her was such a great learning experience and she taught us so much. She spent countless hours going over documents, and she showed us how to find all available information on the apartment including taxes, insurance, association documents, blue prints of the building... everything! (And she even helped us by explaining the mortgage in great detail!) Her detailed help and efforts were FAR beyond any other realtor we had experienced. She always had time for us, even in the late evenings for 2-3 hours, and was totally devoted to helping us. During the process, there were times when we needed to react quickly, and she would always write or call back immediately and would be available to advise us. She also found us a great inspector to check the apartment, who was extremely thorough and attentive to detail. We ended up finding the apartment of our dreams and we know we wouldn't have got it without her help. Very highly recommended! read more

HOME BUYER SEMINAR AT CITIBANK For the first-time home buyer, the large purchase of a home can be daunting. Shira Steinberg's "FREE Home Buyer Seminar" at Citibank helps first time home buyers understand the complete process from beginning to end. Shira ensures that all her students are well-taken care of, so she explains everything in great detail, accompanied by visuals that illustrate the concepts. The bankers at Citibank mentioned that there is no other person who can explain the complications of home buying in such a simple format. I highly recommend Shira's workshop as it highlights the necessities of purchasing a home and forewarns common pitfalls to educate the new home buyer. read more

When we started looking for our first home a few years ago, we learnt quickly that there were many benefits of working with a buyer's real estate agent rather than looking on our own. Even though the first two agents that we worked with, initially seemed to have our interests in mind, they misadvised us and proved to be very incompetent! When we were ready to give up, I looked online and found Shira. During our first meeting she gathered key information and assessed what we were looking for. Although Arlington wasn't one of the areas she worked in often, I am grateful she decided to work with us. She was always on time, had great suggestions, always kept our interests in mind and guided us to buy our first home. Unlike other agents, she assessed each house we visited and gave very important and honest pros and cons for each one. This is the best and most valuable benefit of having a real estate agent who is knowledgeable and is looking out for you. She never pushed us into buying out of our budget and the house we bought was the perfect fit for all our needs. She worked with a very unpleasant and unhelpful seller's agent during the offer process and although she had to travel internationally, she worked round the clock to close the offer. Shira has become a very valued friend and we respect and appreciate her suggestions because of her honest assessments. A few weeks ago, when we were contemplating either renovating our house or making an investment in another property we reached out to Shira for guidance. This could have been an opportunity for her to benefit from a buyers fee, but her detailed evaluation showed that in our particular situation the renovation plan had certain advantages over making an investment in another property. This kind of honesty with no strings attached is very valuable to me and my husband. We highly recommend Shira and I am sure anyone who works with Shira will be very happy with her work. read more

My husband and I were relocating from Vancouver B.C. Canada to Boston M.A. Our schedule only allotted us one weekend to travel to Boston, visit and make an offer on a property. We selected Shira Steirnberg to shepherd us through our first-time home buying process. From the beginning we were impressed with Shira's professionalism. Shira kept us informed on the Boston housing market by sending us regular emails and discussing the unique traits of each neighborhood in metro Boston. After we created a list of properties to visit and traveled to Boston, Shira greeted us with a car and driver, refreshments and documents outlining the home buying process. As we visited the properties on our list, Shira educated us on the neighborhoods, building architecture and suitability for young professionals. Throughout the day we ran into Shira's friends further confirming that we were working with a realtor that knew and served the neighborhood for many years. After we made an offer on a property accomplishing our task and purchasing a home over the weekend, Shira exhibited the same level of professionalism in assisting us through the closing process. Shira made sure that we stayed on top of our obligations in completing and returning closing documents on time. Shira put us in contact with a real-estate lawyer who converted the closing contract legal speak into plain English making the closing process even smoother. After we moved into our new home Shira worked to make our transition to Boston smooth by providing us with a welcome package listing local restaurants, grocery stores and bars. Shira even connected my wife with other French speaking Canadians in the Boston area. Three years after working with Shira to purchase our home in the South End, Shira continues to invite us to her dessert parties to network and build relationships with other Boston residents. We would highly recommend working with Shira to help you through your home purchasing process. - M & J read more

If you're looking for a fantastic real estate agent in the greater Boston area, look no further than Shira Steinberg! If you want the "quick and dirty" version: she is very knowledgeable, wonderful on her follow up, professional, courteous, goes way way beyond the extra mile, and also importantly she has a sense of humor. I can only emphasize how wonderful she was to work with! If you want the full detail of our great experience, read on. My husband and I approached a number of agents when looking for both a single family house and investment condo. We are based in London, UK so time differences and international calling charges can make it a little difficult to connect to people at times, so we initiated contact via email. Shira responded to my email and also left a voicemail on my US phone to let us know that she would be available to work with us during a four day weekend that we were planning on being in Boston. We initially chose Shira on our short list because of her other positive reviews, her credentials, and her experience in the business. Immediately once we started corresponding with Shira, we knew we had made the right decision; she always responded very quickly to emails - if she was going to be busy in meetings or with other clients during the day, she would let me know that, and let me know that she would send full detailed answers to all of our questions before the end of the day. I greatly appreciated that because then I knew that she had received my email, and it reassured me that she would never forget about us; when our queries weren't time critical she would deal with them in due course - and she always did follow up with additional detail (even if I asked the same question several times). If any of our correspondence was time critical, she made sure to respond to me first thing in the morning her time so we would still have several "shared" daytime hours to work out the necessary details. She organized a training sessions for us via Skype so we could get an introduction to the housing market, which we found very helpful. We then selected all of our favorite properties (both houses and condos) and she suggested we make a "B list" in case some of them were off the market before we arrived in Boston. On the Monday prior to our visit, which happened to be Memorial Day, and one of her very few days off, she took it upon herself to do a "drive by" of all of the properties on our list (over 40!) to advise if she thought it would be worth our time to see them (for example if the neighborhood was run-down or the like, she then noted that to us), and ensure that we made the best use of the limited time we had. That also gave us a lot of confidence in Shira - that she would have our interests in mind, she knew what we were looking for, and we thought/worked in the same way. By the time we arrived in Boston, Shira knew we were very detail oriented and wanted to be able to see "everything" to make up our minds ourselves. She very expertly and efficiently planned three packed days of seeing houses and condos all over greater Boston. She make sure we had enough time for each viewing, and enough time for travel in between along with lunch etc. She must have an advanced degree in logistics to make it all work out so perfectly! Each morning she gave us a packet of all of the properties we were going to see that day, including local and larger scale maps to help us put it all in perspective. As you will see in other reviews, she has a driver, Zvi, which made things so easy - she was able to talk to and focus on us without having to worry about traffic, parking, etc. She let us take our time through every property, and then asked us our opinion on the way to the next property. She also knew to ask the seller's agent key questions that were important to us, but things that we wouldn't have known without her asking. If there was anything that was outside her area of expertise, she was very up front about that, but she always went-away and found more information for us. That again made her more credible to us - no one is going to know everything, but she didn't try to blag it off that she did and then get something crucial wrong, and she always followed up to get us the info we wanted or needed. She never rushed us through or tried to influence our thoughts at all, yet all along she knew which house we were going to pick. Shira expertly guided us through the offer and continued to go above and beyond - doing things that the builder or his agent should have to ensure that the closing happened in the limited time we had in our follow up trip to the States. We asked Shira to keep a key to the house until we moved back, as we trusted her, and knew that if we needed her, she would be there for us. When we are ready to look for property again, Shira will be the first and only person we contact! If you choose to work with Shira, I promise you will not be disappointed! read more