Buying off market might be the secret to success in the Bay Area’s AI real estate frenzy (here’s one success)

After four years, my clients bought a completely updated house in Kensington without any competition from other buyers.

Here’s what makes this story different from most “we found our dream home” stories: the home wasn’t listed. It wasn’t coming soon or Private Exclusive. It wasn’t even on anyone’s radar as a sale. It was a house my clients had walked their dogs by many times. It was undergoing renovations, owned by people who had zero intention of selling off-market when this all started.

We had first discussed their home search four years earlier.

Location, location: the one non-negotiable

When this couple first came to me, they told me something I hear a lot but rarely see people actually stick to: they weren’t willing to leave their neighborhood. Not “we’d prefer to stay nearby.” Not “if something good comes up close by, great.” They meant it as a hard boundary. In fact, they made a block by block map.

The map showed me was much more focused than the one in the market report.

It showed exactly what blocks they might consider in El Cerrito, Albany, Berkeley and Kensington. (If you don’t know this area, clearly these are small towns all close together.) Based on their budget, and knowing the market, I couldn’t help but think “good luck with that!”

If you do know the Thousand Oaks and North Berkeley pocket of the 94707 zip code, you know why limiting a search to a few blocks is a tough ask without an “unlimited” budget. This is one of the most popular markets in the East Bay.

When a house sells in Thousand Oaks, it’s usually gone in about two weeks, often with multiple offers, always above asking. Why?

• It is such a charming neighborhood, near Solano Ave. shopping and restaurants.
• Longtime home owners in the hills sell their large homes and want to downsize to the flats.
• Newly affluent commuters want to be in highly rated school districts near cafes and trnsportation. And everyone else in between covets that area.

Agents price homes low to generate interest. Local agents understand what the expectation of the ultimate sale price will be. Even so, updated and move-in ready houses often sell way over the expectations.

So hearing “we’re not going beyond these few blocks” was a stretch goal. Luckily they were happy in their rental and not in a hurry. That is key for home shopping: start early with an agent, rather than starting when you NEED to buy. It doesn’t cost any more to hire a buyer’s agent early vs. going to open houses for years on your own and guessing how the process works. (More tips for home buying success.)

In fact, most sellers in the East Bay will cover the buyer broker fee. There is no payment made to your agent until you buy. (Have you heard of any other professionals who work for free except for lawyers working on multi-million dollar contingencies?!)

Over the months and years we stayed in touch. They knew I was in, whether it was a fixed-up house or a fixer for which they could get a renovation loan. A renovation loan is where the bank lends based on the fixed-up price and a contractor fixes it up before you move in. These are less common in fast-moving real estate markets though not impossible.

We knew the search might take a while. But then something happened!

They found a house on their dream block

This wasn’t four years of me sending listings and hoping. What we did instead was stay close. Their careers changed. Their financial picture changed. Every shift mattered, because it changed what they could qualify for and what kind of opportunity might actually work when it appeared.

We stayed in touch over the years, because we had connected, and I truly wanted to help them achieve their goal and wanted to recognize the right opportunity when it showed up.

And then it did! A house near where they already lived started undergoing renovations. That’s a signal a lot of agents miss entirely, because it doesn’t show up as a listing. It shows up as a dumpster in a driveway or scaffolding going up.

To many people, it just means somebody’s fixing up their house. To me, it meant: these owners are actively engaged with this property right now, which means there’s a live conversation to be had. Plus, the home had sold earlier in the year as a major fixer.

The part that isn’t really a real estate skill

My clients chatted with the people at the job site over the months. I’m a connector before I’m anything else in this business, and this is the kind of moment that skill is actually for: finding the human thread between two parties who had no obvious reason to be in a transaction together, and giving them a reason.

It wasn’t me though. The owners knew that this family that had watched this neighborhood, cared about it, and wanted nothing more than to stay in it. We negotiated a deal that worked well for my clients, in a market where buyers routinely lose out even when a home IS listed and they come in over asking.

From there, it was blocking and tackling

Once we had a deal, my job shifted into the parts of this business that makes or breaks a transaction. The buyers worked closely with their lender to structure financing that would work for everyone. We set up a many week escrow, vs the usual pressure to “close as fast as possible.” The blessing was my clients were able to make small customizations to the house which is usually only possible in new construction homes.

Why this story of connecting the dots matters if you’re house hunting in the Berkeley area

If you’re searching in Thousand Oaks, North Berkeley, Kensington, or anywhere in the Berkeley area and Rockridge and you have a neighborhood you’re not willing to compromise on, waiting for the right listing to appear on Zillow or Redfin may not be a strategy.

Sometimes the answer isn’t searching harder or going to more open houses. It’s connecting early with an agent who will stay with you long enough, and knows the neighborhood well enough, to spot the opportunity before it’s a listing at all. Sure this story of a unicorn home, timing, builder, and agents all coming together is not typical. But this story shows it can happen.

Do you believe in synchronicity and see the magic in coincidence? I do. Many miles from home, a few weeks after closing, my client and I ran into each other in a mall parking garage. A mall neither one of us ever go to.

Connecting the dots for real estate success is fulfilling. Connecting as humans is epic! Is that the kind of connection you want?

THE REVIEW:
“We have been incredibly fortunate to have worked with Susie for more than four years before finally finding the home we had always hoped for. Throughout our search, there was one criterion we were never willing to compromise on: staying in the same neighborhood that we had grown to love.
Susie gave us all the time we needed and stayed in touch with us consistently as our careers, financial situation, and immigration status improved year after year. She never forgot about us and always kept us informed about new opportunities and developments in the real estate market.
When a property just one block from our former home began undergoing renovations, Susie used her outstanding relationship-building skills to connect with the new owners. She shared our story, advocated on our behalf, and successfully negotiated a very favorable deal for us. From that moment on, she was involved in every step of the home-buying process–coordinating with lenders and insurance companies, answering our questions, and providing invaluable guidance and support along the way.
Susie helped make our dream come true. It was a long journey, and we would never have been able to achieve it without her experience, dedication, patience, and unwavering commitment.
Susie, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. You are simply the best!”

-my lovely clients