Listing agent · El Dorado Hills and Folsom
If you have decided to sell, the next decision is which listing agent handles it, and most of what you will read while deciding sounds the same. So this page is not a list of promises. It is how I actually work, what I will tell you before you sign anything, and the kind of seller I am not the right fit for.
The first thing to know
But putting a price on a house and getting the market to agree with us are two different things.
I ran my own appraisal practice before I sold real estate, and it taught me very early to separate what we want a property to be worth from what the market is actually showing us. It is also why the automated estimates miss here. That is the part of this work I am most particular about, and it is the part most likely to cost you money if it is got wrong.
Sellers have reasons for the number they arrive with. What they invested in the house. What a neighbor sold for. Sometimes just a figure that has been in their head a while. When I do not think the market supports it, I will say so, and I would rather have an uncomfortable conversation at the beginning than tell someone what they want to hear in order to get the listing.
If we disagree on price
Testing a higher number is your decision to make, and sometimes it is the right one. What I will not do is let us drift.
So before we launch, we agree what we are watching for and what we will do about it. Showings that do not turn into offers tell us something. Buyers responding consistently to the price tells us something. That is information, and once we have it we make a decision together rather than reacting emotionally to every showing.
The alternative is chasing the market down from a number we could not support in the first place, which costs more in the end than starting honestly. If you want to see the arithmetic on your own situation before we ever speak, the net proceeds calculator works without asking for your email.
The first two weeks
Not getting the sign in the ground. We start with your timing, what you want to accomplish, and what has to happen before the home goes on the market at all.
Before anyone sees it
A lot of what I do happens before the public ever sees the house, and it is the part that is easiest to skip because it costs money and takes time.
The professional staging guidance and the photography are the visible half. The bigger difference is the amount of thought that goes into positioning. Who is the likely buyer. What will they notice first. What makes this property different from the ones it is competing with. What could cause someone to hesitate, and what should we deal with before we launch rather than after.
I also market my listings personally. That means talking to agents, following up after showings, holding an open house when it makes sense rather than as a matter of routine, listening to what buyers say, and watching what is happening in the market around us while the home is on it.
Who you are actually hiring
I am the broker and I own the company, so there is no corporate structure sitting between my clients and the person responsible for the decisions.
I have kept the business boutique deliberately. I do not want hundreds of clients moving through a machine. I am personally involved in the strategy, the pricing, the negotiations and the conversations that matter, and owning the company means I can make decisions based on what a particular client or property needs instead of fitting every seller into the same system.
My name is on the company and my reputation is attached to every transaction. I take that personally.
Why local matters more here than people think
That is the biggest mistake I see listing agents from outside the area make, and it shows up in the price.
Neighborhoods here can be very different from one another. School boundaries, HOA dues and Mello-Roos, custom versus production homes, lot characteristics, views, acreage, neighborhood amenities, and even the feel of one particular street all affect value and buyer demand. A custom home in Francisco Oaks is not automatically comparable to another home because the square footage and the bedroom count happen to match. Serrano has its own nuances. So do the neighborhoods around the lake, the gated communities, the acreage properties and the newer developments.
I have lived in El Dorado Hills for nearly twenty years and in El Dorado County for more than fifty. There are things you understand from living somewhere that do not show up when you draw a radius around a property in the MLS.
In my words
That is a very different conversation, and it is most of the work I do.
Longtime homeowners are often sorting through decades of belongings, memories, paperwork and family decisions at the same time as they are trying to answer a question about real estate. Sometimes they are not certain they are ready to move at all. So I slow the process down where it needs slowing down, and we separate the decisions. What has to happen now. What can wait. What stays and what goes. What genuinely needs doing to the house before selling, and what does not.
Sometimes the first conversation is not really about selling the house. It is about working out whether moving makes sense at all, and what the next chapter could look like. That is why I built the Next Chapter Blueprint. People usually need a plan before they need a listing agreement.
Being straight about it
If you are looking for someone who will simply agree with everything you say, I am probably not the right agent for you.
I am collaborative, but I am also going to tell you what I think. If I believe you are about to spend money on something you do not need, I will say so. If I think the price is hurting us, I will say so. If an offer deserves a closer look even though it is not the number you hoped for, we are going to talk about it.
I am also probably not the right fit for someone who wants the cheapest, most transactional way to get a house onto the MLS. My business is personal on purpose. I want to understand why you are moving, what you are trying to accomplish, and what matters to you beyond the transaction.
I do not believe my job is to pressure anybody into selling. My job is to help you understand your options, give you good advice, tell you the truth, and help you make the decision that is right for you. If that is what you are after, we will get along. If you would rather read first, the questions I actually get asked are written out with the answers I would give you in person, and what clients said afterwards is in their words rather than mine.
Fifteen minutes, no contract, and an honest answer about what I would do with your house. If the answer is that now is the wrong time, I will say that instead.
Lets connect
No contract, no obligation, and no pressure to be further along than you are. Plenty of people write to me a year before they are ready, and that is genuinely the right time to write.
Stay Updated
Market notes, new listings, and what is actually moving in El Dorado Hills and Folsom. Sent when there is something worth saying, and not before.
Sign Up