What an ideal realtor should be! After going through a couple of purchases and sales in the last few years, our experience with Bob tops all other agents we've dealt with. We would highly recommend Bob for not just San Carlos but also other cities in the Peninsula. He is extremely knowledgeable, honest and diligent. He also provides excellent customer service and responds very quickly.
Bob is honest and diligent. When we first looked to buy a home a San Carlos, Bob would do his due diligence on homes we showed the most interest in, and he would even call the home inspectors directly to ask questions. Most buying agents would not do this much work because it might be a waste of time if the buyers decided not to make an offer. Bob would even discourage us from making an offer if he thought the house had major issues or we would be spending too much money upgrading the house. We know Bob is a busy agent so we were pleasantly surprised by his effort on homes that did not qualify for us. In contrast, we find many agents follow the mantra: "ABC: always be closing".
We eventually decided to move from San Carlos to another city and picked a "local" agent for our buying decision. A big mistake! Even after we made our home purchase with another agent, we relied on Bob for references on painting and flooring contractors for the new home. We found Bob to be very fast in responding to all our questions. We usually got email responses from Bob within an hour.
When we decided to sell our home in San Carlos, we interviewed several agents. Bob immediately stood out to us after our first meeting because he was the least "salesy" of the agents we talked to. He was not only the most knowledgeable but also spoke in a straightforward manner. Bob came to our meeting prepared with an information packet he personalized for us. Some agents either showed up with nothing or brought some disorganized MLS sheet that just came off their printers.
Bob told us he'd market our house with the same approach as he would for more expensive homes. While most homeowners like to hear prospective agents estimate home prices as high as possible, Bob did not shy away from giving us an honest opinion based on current market conditions. We found Bob's honesty refreshing. During our sales process, Bob kept us up-to-date so we didn't feel out of the loop. Due to his legal background, he was able to explain all the items in the contracts in layman terms and the whole process went extremely smoothly.
We have been pleasantly surprised by all our dealings with Bob. Had we met him earlier, we would have gone with him for all our transactions and saved ourselves the frustration. He genuinely looks out for his clients.
