Read about how Ryan and Jennifer won the home they loved in a hot market, what surprised them about the process, and how they’ve already personalized their home.
First Home? Yes - hooray!
Beds & Baths: 3+ Bedrooms, 2 Bathrooms
Homes Looked At: About a dozen
Favorite Room: The sunroom
How long was your process from search to close?
We looked at about a dozen homes total. We
weren’t serious about buying a home at first - we found ZipRealty because it would appear
in search results for homes we were interested in. When we started using the website and
got connected with Marissa (our agent), that’s when we got more serious! She was honest,
straightforward and took into account everything we were looking for. We ended up finding
and closing on our home within six months of starting our search!
Were you able to negotiate at all on the price?
Well, since Oakland is really competitive,
we had to offer over the list price. Marissa knows the Oakland market really well and
advised us what we should offer to win the home.
What is one home or garden project you’re looking forward to?
We already made a craft room
since we’re pretty big DIYers. We made curtains for the many, many windows in our house
and turned our metal cabinets into a cool magnet board! We’re looking forward to adding
more counter space and a breakfast bar.
What is your favorite feature on the ZipRealty website or mobile app?
Ryan is a bit of a
techie and loved using the app - he especially liked searching by neighborhood for really
localized results.
Any tips for other buyers?
The inspection process was a big learning experience. The
report we got back was 86 pages long! We definitely didn’t expect that, but Marissa
explained that the report was not as bad as it seemed and walked us through the issues we
needed to pay attention to. We appreciated that she spoke to us not just as a real estate
agent, but also as a homeowner herself!