FROM BERKELEY TO BOLINAS

A few months after my client bought a landmarked home in a pedigreed enclave in Berkeley, the pandemic hit.

Life changed in that moment, and he wanted to move to a different enclave: Bolinas. He sought privacy, misty ocean-scented air, a connection to nature. The problem was, I didn’t cover Bolinas and knew little about it. He was insistent that he knew enough about the singular culture and idosyncracies of Bolinas, and together we would be dream makers. I was equally insistent that he work with a local agent who knew the real estate landscape, the inspectors, and the agent community who had their finger on the pulse of the scarce inventory, much of which changed hands off-market and under the radar.

After working with three different Bolinas agents, my client called me again: “Come. Help me. I am unhappy with the local representation. Let’s do this together.”

I programmed a search and reached out to all the major players in Bolinas. This is a market that has only one or two properties for sale per year; we needed to look under every stone and cover all the bases.

After nearly a year of scrutinizing every listing, I received an alert to a property that was coming soon; the public was not privy to it… yet. I sent the info to my client. We dropped everything and went to see it the same day. There were already people viewing it when we got there. The property was glorious.

As we drove away in separate cars, I called the listing agent to collect more information and share my client’s interest. One of the key factors in succeeding in the off-market space is developing rapport and trust with the seller’s agent, and we immediately bonded. I was informed that there were two offers coming in. At the same moment, my client called: “I want it; let’s write an offer.” We were 90 minutes from good reception, and I could not get a connection back to the agent. It’s was a nail-biting ride home, with calls dropping and conversations truncated, but by dinner-time, we had an offer ready to submit. The agent asked me to present the offer in person to the sellers at 11:30pm. By 11:59pm, my buyer’s offer was accepted, 15 hours after I first heard about it. In Bolinas. With misty ocean-scented air and a view of the Farrallon Islands.

Dream, made.