Buy/Sell Realtor - Albany/Berkeley/Rockridge/Piedmont
We are looking to sell our home in Albany and purchase a larger home. We'd love to stay in the Albany / North Berkeley area but based on our search so far, we're more likely to find what we need in Upper Rockridge, Piedmont or perhaps Claremont. We have a very clear idea of what we are looking for in a house, but need help with (1) crafting a winning bid, (2) advice on upgrades / fixes to our current home to maximize sale value, and (3) navigating the simultaneous (or at least closely timed) buy/sell process. Thank you in advance for any referrals.
Jul 19, 2023
Parent Replies
Kwesi Roberts at Compass has a very deep knowledge of Bay Area real estate - I highly recommend him! He helped us purchase our duplex in Point Richmond.
We were moving cross-country so can’t speak to (2) or (3), but Devin Ratoosh was a phenomenal partner for (1) and couldn’t recommend him enough there. Suspect he’s also very skilled at (2) and (3), just don’t have personal experience there.
Hi, our realtor, Teresa Baum (https://www.compass.com/agents/teresa-baum/) is absolutely fantastic (she helped us purchase our home in Piedmont and has helped 2 other sets of friends purchase in the last year, too). She also knows the Rockridge and Claremont areas really well. Feel free to tell her Chi Rogers referred you. Good luck!
I highly recommend Megan Micco, she handles transactions like what you are proposing all the time and she is absolutely dialed on the pulse of the market. She went to albany schools from elementary through high schools and then on the UC Berkeley. She helped us craft a winning bid on our house in South Berkeley and was an absolute pleasure to deal with. Her website is: https://www.meganmicco.com/
Feel free to message me for any additional questions.
We bought and sold recently using Julie Cuellas of Red Oak as our realtor-- she was absolutely essential to our process, esp. overall strategy and how to package our house so that the delta between the house we bought and the house we sold was as small as possible. Julie walked us through the various pros and cons of different approaches; we ended up buying first (because finding the right house to buy was harder than selling, and we needed to ensure that we were buying and selling in as close to the same market as possible), using a bridge loan in order to be able to put down a larger down payment than we could have otherwise prior to selling our old house. We had a good experience with Tom Nitsan of MPR Financial for the financing.
Although it ended up working out well for us personally (although increased interest rates made the move more costly than originally anticipated), we came away feeling disgusted by the overall unaffordability and inequity of the East Bay housing market. With the benefit of hindsight, we would be less inclined to participate in that marketplace overall, and maybe would have just renovated or otherwise made do with our smaller house.
Hi There! We bought our home last year with Alex Michas, and I cannot recommend him highly enough. He has so much experience and skill with both buying and selling homes, and he’s also just a wonderful person! Here’s his website: https://alexmichas.com. Best of luck!
Perry Riani at Compass has experience and extensive knowledge in all of these areas and geos and is a very chill, no pressure person. Highly HIGHLY recommend. We’ve worked with him as buyers and sellers.
Megan Micco is THE BEST. ( (www.meganmicco.com )
I own a home staging company, and I have worked with dozens of East Bay realtors, so it should speak volumes that I chose Megan when my husband and I were ready to buy a house. I can't say enough good things about her- she is so, so smart, and so well respected by other realtors, which is hugely important- there is no way we would have gotten our amazing house without Megan. She fought for us, and we beat out seven other offers, and we somehow still got an amazing deal. She also has a great personality and has a great team working with her.
We recently recommended Megan to close friends who were selling their North Berkeley house, and they were impressed with her every step of the way- from her amazing listing presentation, to how she presented and marketed the property, to the incredible offers she brought in and closed.
I can't say enough about Megan Micco. (www.meganmicco.com) She is an absolute star. She knows the market very well and went above and beyond for us--both in the purchasing of our new home in Kensington and in the selling of our house in Berkeley. It's a crazy market--and we were facing a lot of uncertainty about interest rates, etc. Megan was a huge help in supporting us through the ups and downs of that process. She cares deeply about her clients.