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…
Location location location ! Location has always been the most important feature when buying real estate. That’s how “location location location” said 3x became a saying that transcends time. But what does “location” mean exactly? The right location may mean a coveted school district or neighborhood known for its name, such as Pacific Heights in…
If you are thinking of selling a Berkeley 1-2 unit property that currently has natural gas any time soon, you may want to time any energy-efficiency upgrades based on the sale date. Why? Because Berkeley limit the number of years a home upgrade qualifies for points toward their energy efficiency program. As of this writing,…
With relish, I devoured the Wall Street Journal “Retirement Rookies” article by Stephen Kreider Yoder and Karen Kreider Yoder. The title was “We Considered Leaving the City in Retirement. We’re So Glad We Didn’t.” Mind you, this isn’t the “city” as in New York; some people insist that’s the only city that deserves that moniker….
When looking at houses with clients, I often point out that a living space can essentially be extended at relatively low cost by plunking an 8×10 studio in the backyard — not to mention the bigger investment of an ADU. So when the 2026 Bay Area ADU Expo in San Jose popped up in my inbox,…
My most passionate home buyer clients seem to be Costco members. Is there a “Costco Connection”? As a real estate agent and Costco member who visits a store every chance I get — whether in the U.S. or abroad — I’ve noticed a trend among my clients. A surprising number of my successful home buyers…
