Claude told me something today that sounded too good to be true: “Compass offers a concierge service where the brokerage pays for staging, painting, landscaping, decluttering and other preparation at the agent’s expense, as part of marketing the home. This is a broker-level program rather than an individual agent model.” WOW. The brokerage PAYS for…
Today I asked AI: What happened to the proposal to eliminate home sale capital gains tax? The answers were unanimous: Gridlock. No movement. The proposed laws range from raising the exemption to $500,000 for solo homeowners to completely eliminating the tax for sales of primary residences. Everyone talks about the need to build more housing….
You’re in luck! The Rockridge Kitchen Tour is happening again in 2026! I love the Rockridge Kitchen Tour, not only because my own kitchen is desperately in need of updating. If you love going to open houses for remodeling ideas, you must come to the tour on September 27th. It’s like open houses on steroids!…
This weekend, some home buyers dropped in on the open house I was hosting. This beautiful home is the hills of Montclair, a charming part of Oakland known for its views. They were visiting from another state and thinking about moving to the Bay Area. Visiting open houses is an awesome way to discover neighborhoods….
AI consultants are telling real estate agents how to use AI to generate neighborhood overview videos. Like, instead of going into the neighborhood and shooting video. As someone who actually is a local resident and expert in Berkeley, Rockridge, and the Bay Area, and who has created content online since the Internet was invented and…
What are most buyers looking for in a Berkeley home for a large group, whether family, friends, or multi-generation living? Our new listing at 2429 – 2431 McKinley Ave in Central Berkeley — a Spanish-style 4 bedroom home with a detached ADU — could be the perfect case study of what “checking the boxes” means. Whether you…
How can a home buyer compete with AI money in Berkeley and Rockridge ? Local real estate agent Susie Wyshak shares a success story about strategic connecting the dots.
The answer is MAYBE. When you first read about SB-9 in Oakland, it sounds like multi-family properties are not qualified for lot splits. Reading between the lines, you see it is single-family zoned properties that my be allowed to split lots under California’s SB9 act. There are many 1-4 unit properties (duplexes, triplexes etc.) in single-family…
Rockridge is one of the most popular neighborhoods in the San Francisco East Bay thanks to many factors: Being a popular place to buy means lots of competition. It also means prices have gone up and up. But what I really wanted to write about, as a longtime Rockridge homeowner myself, is what to look…
With a title like that, you probably think I’m going to talk about paint colors, changing the toilet seat, or should you add splashes of wallpaper or not. Probably the most important decision you will make once you buy a house is…drumroll: Which brand of cordless power tools will you commit to? Why is this…
