How I got here
This is my third career, and the first one taught me the most.
For twenty five years I worked in healthcare as a dental hygienist. It is not the background anybody expects and it is the one I lean on most. You are alone with somebody for an hour, usually somebody who would rather be anywhere else, and the whole thing rests on whether they trust you enough to be still and tell you honestly what is bothering them. Twenty five years of that teaches you to listen before you advise, and to notice the thing a person has not said yet.
My degree is in Business Management, from St Mary's College. My husband worked in real estate and as a general contractor, and between watching him and being curious I ended up taking my real estate, appraiser and broker licenses all in the same year.
Appraising came next. I ran CK Appraisals as a certified residential appraiser and it grew almost entirely on referrals, which taught me early that this work runs on whether people trust you enough to send you their friends. It also taught me to look at a house as a set of facts first and a story second, which is a discipline I have never lost.
When the market turned in 2006 I started CK Real Estate to help owners in distress, which is not a gentle apprenticeship. It is, though, an unusually good one. You learn very quickly what is worth promising and what is not.
What I do now
Mostly, people leaving a house they have been in a long time.
Some are downsizing. Some are moving closer to family. Some are buying and selling at the same time and have no idea what order to do it in, which is genuinely the hardest part and the part almost nobody helps with.
The appraisal background is why I am particular about pricing. When we talk about what your home is worth I will put the comparable sales in front of you and explain the reasoning, rather than handing you a number and asking you to trust it. Then you decide, and I handle the rest.
I also work with buyers coming over from the Bay Area, who tend to arrive with good questions and no idea what Mello-Roos is. That page exists for them.
On the record
The details, in one place.
- License
- California DRE #01483621, Broker
- Brokerage
- CK Real Estate Brokerage, DRE #01838079
- Previously licensed
- Real estate appraiser
- Education
- Business Management, St Mary's College
- Selling since
- 2006, in addition to CK Appraisals
- Before real estate
- Twenty five years in healthcare as a dental hygienist
- Local expertise
- El Dorado Hills, Folsom, Granite Bay, Cameron Park, Shingle Springs and Placerville
- Office
- 4905 Golden Foothill Parkway, El Dorado Hills, CA 95762
- Member
- El Dorado County Association of REALTORS®, California Association of REALTORS®
Outside the job
Twenty eight years of Shetland Sheepdogs.
Long enough to have watched a few of them grow old, and long enough that a donation goes to NorCal Sheltie Rescue for every home I help sell. That is why, and where it goes.
