Kevin+Jonathan In and On the Media
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE Q+A
The San Francisco Chronicle asks expert area realtors questions every week for their Sound-Off segment found in its Sunday Real Estate Section. The online counter part appears on SF Gate. We've been asked to contribute and do so fairly often, which is what you're seeing here.
Q: What’s some things clients (buyers or sellers) can do to make your job and the overall transaction process easier?
A: From day one, we start educating our clients with a big BART-like map with all the possible stops and paths we’ll encounter on our trip to the client’s destination. (See below) It’s akin to a choose-your-own-adventure book.
The visual aid helps our clients come up to speed on how we buy and sell prosperities in the most expensive market in the country. This speaks to the larger point of how important it is to both learn and trust the process. It’s a process where countless folks work every day to match the right buyers with the right seller.
The quicker our clients understand that the buying and selling process is going to involve going through stops and starts, places they don’t think they’ll go, and that there could be delays, the sooner they’ll join the ranks of our successful homeowners and sellers.
The online version of this was published on December 1, 2019 while the print version was published on Sunday, December 1, 2019. Find the online version here.
For More Sound-Off Snippets...
While acute market forces are curtailing new construction starts now, development here was already an uphill battle. Development timelines take years, so any non-NIMBY-related delays in adding new homes will keep housing prices high that much longer. But even for people who can afford to buy in the Bay Area, there’s a shortage of accessible destination homes for folks who are downsizing or ones who can no longer do the stairs in their 3-story Victorian.
Conflicting news reports about the real estate ‘market’ are concerning because they gloss over the fact that the housing market is very nuanced as each property is unique. Folks can lose sight that buying a home not only serves the very basic purpose of shelter but is also the main way folks can build wealth.