Our Services & Pricing

Residential Real Estate Services for Buyers and Sellers

We work equally with buyers and sellers and our major coverage area is Central Contra Costa County and North Alameda County. Or more simply put, the towns, cities and neighborhoods around the 680 corridor and Highway 24.

Regardless of your price-point, whether you are buying or selling any kind of a home from a condo to a castle, we will provide you with the high level of service to which we believe you are entitled.

If you are buying, we will go to great pains to understand exactly what you are looking for in a home and we will do everything we can, regardless of how long it takes, to find the right property for you at the best price.

If you are selling, our primary objective is to get you the very best price for your home with a minimum amount of stress. 

When we list your home for sale:

  • We will arrange for professional home and termite inspections (so you can carry out any corrective work in your own time-frame, rather than a buyer’s)
  • We will arrange for a staging consultation with one of our approved professional stagers, who will make recommendations of minor (and sometimes maybe not so minor) changes that will help to sell your home for the best possible price
  • We will pay for professional staging of your home, including one month’s furniture rental when needed.
  • Your home will be professionally photographed by a specialist real estate photographer. The reult is an unlimited number of high dynamic range photos that we will use extensively in the marketing of your home.
  • We will also arrange for a 3-D visual presentation of your home – essentially a 24 hour per day Open House so potential buyers can appreciate everything about your home.
  • All of the above will come together to form the basis of a website that is dedicated to your home, and that provides all the information a buyer could need – map, schools and nighborhood information, detailed description and more.
  • Before your home is ready to be viewed by potential buyers, we will advertise it as a “Coming Soon” listing on Zillow, within RE/MAX (both providing national exposure) and to our network of agents who operate in your area.
  • Finally, when the stage is set, your home is marketed EVERYWHERE. It will be on every website you would want to be, and continually advertised on FaceBook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and more.

Note that everything stated above is included in our brokerage fee.

Pricing – We Believe in Transparency

It must be very confusing and disturbing to potential home buyers and sellers, that the cost of services is never discussed on real estate websites.

There are multiple reasons for that. One of which is that many agents simply want to get face to face with you before discussing costs with you. Because let’s face it, selling your home can be an expensive undertaking. More on that subject below, but first let’s make sure that you know how the pricing structure works.

Costs To Home Buyers

When we represent you as a buyer, it costs you nothing. That doesn’t mean our services come free, of course. They are paid for by the seller.

When a home is listed for sale on the Multiple Listing Service (the MLS), the listing agent specifies what the brokerage representing the buyer will be paid in the event of a sale being achieved. This is usually a percentage of the sale price, but it could be a fixed amount of money. So in our case, assuming the seller has agreed to co-operate at x% of the sale price, that amount would be paid to RE/MAX Accord on completion of sale, and we would receive a proportion of that from RE/MAX Accord.

Now there are other costs that a buyer will incur over the course of a transaction. The buyer normally pays the escrow fee, title insurance costs, and the costs of any inspections desired, other than those already arranged by the seller. Other costs will include recording charges, notary fees etc. In the event of financing being needed, there will also be loan and appraisal related costs. Some of these are determined by the purchase price of the home in question, and we would be happy to let you have a more detailed estimate for any price range that you are considering on request.

Selling Your Home

Real estate agents have been advised to avoid discussing commission fees in any public setting, and this includes websites. This came about as a result of past litigation regarding suggestions of price-fixing, and this is another reason you won’t see much mention of brokerage commission rates on the Internet.

But as stated, we believe in being transparent with you, so keep on reading.

Before getting into actual costs, please remember that if you are comparing the costs of listing with Agent A, as against Agent B, you should see what you are getting for your money. The end result (the final sale price), will vary wildly if you list with an inexperienced agent providing a minimum level of service, as opposed to an experienced team who operate as full-service marketing specialists.

The Selling Commission

As stated above, we are advised not to discuss the actual commission amount. We are not hiding anything though. If you contact us and ask what we would charge, we will tell you. I can tell you now that it will a fixed percentage of actual sale price, it will include everything mentioned above, and you will get a full professional service, regardless of whether you are selling a $400,000 condo or a $4million estate.

Half of the selling commission will be paid to the brokerage representing the buyer, and the other half will be paid to RE/MAX Accord, which will be shared with us.