She definitely lives up to her reputation – Karen Ortega

My husband and I had the daunting task of selling his family home in Walnut Creek after the passing of his parents. Since we live Oakland, I needed help finding a great realtor who knows the area. Kathy was recommended to me by my brother-in-law and his wife since she is the top selling realtor in the Northgate area. They noticed that any house with a FOR SALE sign with Kathy’s name as the listing agent has a SOLD sign on it within a week so she knows how to get the job done.

I’m an admitted control freak who is also very demanding and anal which is a volatile combination, just ask my poor husband. With that said, I can be intense and my expectations are sky-high! She definitely lives up to her reputation and, more importantly, my expectations as being efficient, effective, knowledgeable and responsive. If I don’t get a response from someone that I have called or emailed within a few hours, I will call or send a follow-up email to see if they have received my message. I have emailed Kathy at 11pm at night not expecting a response until the next day but I will wake up the next morning to find an email from Kathy with a time stamp well past midnight so you know that girl works hard!!!

I have to give a shout-out to Debbie, her assistant, for her help in the process of meeting with contractors to get bids for sprucing up the house, consulting on improvements and getting resources in the area since we don’t live in Walnut Creek. Kathy was sensitive to the fact that we had a limited budget to fix up the house but we wanted maximum results to attract a lot of attention from buyers.

She promised that once the family finished cleaning out the house, she could get the house on the market and start escrow in one month. I thought that sounded ambitious but she pulled it off and escrow closed 1 week earlier than anticipated. With her experience and knowledge of the market, she priced the house so competitively and strategically that we received 6 offers on the house and we sold at a price that was beyond our expectations. I love that Kathy offers complimentary staging for open house and makes a donation to a local school as part of her services. She was our guide through a difficult, scary and confusing process. After an experience like this, you often wonder if you did the right thing and I think its natural to second guess yourself in hindsight. I look back on this and feel confident that we made the right choice in hiring Kathy to be not just our realtor but our advocate. I cannot give enough praise to her and I highly recommend her!