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Scott Ward

Realtor Red Oak Realty 01490471
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Call: (415) 225-4593
Email: scott@scottward.me
The real estate world can often feel like a pressure cooker as emotions run high and financial implications loom. Buyers and sellers have a lot of questions about market conditions, hot neighborhoods, the best schools, where prices are headed and how a home can be shown in its best light.? 

As an agent who has been involved in many types of transactions, Scott’s primary goals are to offer clarity and value to his clients. Having represented buyers and sellers in a variety of transactions that include; single family homes, condos, multi-family buildings, land, and commercial property, he has an educated opinion and firm understanding of the real estate marketplace.? 

The act of buying or selling a property is a collaboration. Through years of experience, Scott has assembled a team of high-quality, licensed experts who demonstrate and articulate their particular skill-set with confidence. He also believes it is important for an agent to get physically involved with inspecting the elements of a structure. He is ready to get under a house and go that extra mile to ensure your understanding of the process.

Scott approaches each transaction as unique, with an earnest readiness to reveal and discuss any issues that may arise. If necessary, he offers realistic solutions and will create a cost-implication spreadsheet, visually laying out the pros and cons.? 

Finally, it is his job to “close the loops” and make your transaction as smooth as possible. He promises to do his best to be communicative, accessible and straight forward about market shifts and expectations. Whether he’s listing a house, finding the best person to complete a building task, respecting a budget, or representing a first time buyer, Scott strives to give you the best possible service.
Buyer
"Scott helped us buy a house in Berkeley. He walked us through the buying process over a full year of looking at listings and attending open houses. His approach was oriented toward the long game and getting us into a house that really met our expectations. As the year progressed, he helped us get a better overall view of the market and a better sense of how important or unimportant gritty details were in the big picture of our (sometimes seemingly endless) search. He also climbed and crawled through attics, basements and crawlspaces with us to get a sense of each property. This was our first experience buying a home through a realtor and Scott helped us to normalize what would have otherwise been an overwhelming experience."
Bought and sold a Single Family home
Scott is fantastic. He has helped in the buying/selling process twice.

He's easy to communicate with, is well known by others in the area and is able to explain all the nuances of the real estate space to laypeople.

Can't recommend him enough. He was always good at representing our best interests and was good at checking in and understanding what our goals/needs were.
Bought a home
Scott was recommended to me by a co-worker, who said this was the last realtor I needed to check out. He was great. In the fast moving Bay Area market, he's knowledgeable, no-nonsense and gets the deal done. He's matter-of-fact, which is essential when emotions get high. He also has a great store of knowledge for home improvements, which was a huge help to us. We bid on three houses with him and in each case he was right on the money with the final price. The home we ended up with was a fierce bidding contest (19 bids), but with his guidance we ended up on top.
Bought a home
The East Bay is an incredibly competitive place to buy a home and it can be overwhelming at times for first-time home buyers like my wife and me. We never could have done it without Scott Ward.

During the nine months that we were in the market, there is no one that we would have rather had representing us than Scott. His counsel was always spot on, his guidance was creative, and his patience never ceased, even when we were sure that he must have been sick of us and our indecisiveness.

When we describe Scott to friends looking for a realtor we always tell two stories. One is that when you meet Scott at a house you can never find him because he is usually doing such a thorough walk-through that he has crawled under the house. He taught us to ask the right questions and to look at certain features of houses in different ways. The other story that we love to tell is that on many occasions when we would debate bidding strategy, he would say "A great bid would be around $x, but it's likely that someone will come in and pay $y. Let them - you don't want the house at that price. But it's still worth it to put a bid in at $x just in case" He never pressured us and his honesty was invaluable.
Bought a Single Family home
Working with Scott was amazing from start to finish.
He took a lot of time to get to know us, and what we wanted and needed from any property we would buy--we were looking for our first home, and had no idea what we were doing beyond making a list of the top things we thought it should include.
He explained every step of the home-buying process, answered every single annoying question we had (sometimes multiple times), and gave us great advice.
He visited open houses with us and pointed out all kinds of things we wouldn't know to look out for, which made it easier for us to do some looking on our own, too.
And when we decided to go back, this time with him, to a house we initially rejected (they had dropped the price significantly and we figured that maybe Scott would see potential we hadn't), he helped us figure out that it was actually the right house for us and navigated the transaction seamlessly.
Scott was even helpful after we closed escrow: he got someone to take away a bunch of junk left behind by the previous owners, and gave us recommendations for people to do several jobs around the house that needed to be done before we could move in.
Bought a home
Scott helped me find a house. He was really great. Very thorough, responsive, and strategic. I was impressed by his ability to distill complicated info into simple terms and to make sure that I stayed in the loop throughout the process. He has deep "insider" knowledge of the East Bay and that was also very helpful, in pinpointing neighborhoods. I cannot recommend Scott enough.
Sold a home
Scott is savvy, experienced and has a good head on his shoulders. He advises in every step of the process and thinks on his feet when things get tough as they often do in real estate transactions. He knows the East Bay very well and knows how to get out of town buyers excited about an area. He goes above and beyond and does it all with a good sense of humor. He thinks outside of the box. I highly recommend him.
Scott was our agent when we bought our first home in Oakland 1.5 years ago. We can't say enough good things about him - he is honest, thorough, down to earth, and an all around awesome guy. He helped us through the whole process of a very fast escrow (2 weeks), explaining every single part and answering all of our questions along the way. He also has a lot of great contacts that help make the whole process much simpler. We still keep in touch with Scott and would recommend him to anyone buying or selling a house.
Sold a Single Family home
We are so thankful to Scott for helping us get through the process of selling our home, which was complicated by us making a couple moves in a short amount of time. We chose Scott, because he knew the area very well and how the market was moving. He listened to our story, our desires as we went through the process (he helped us to try to sell the house off-market, and when that didn't work out the way he hoped, he was on the ball when we moved to the next step of putting the house on-market), and patiently answered our many questions and concerns. He was straightforward about ways our house had strong selling points and weak selling points and how to make our house competitive without spending unreasonable costs to remodel. He was really easy to communicate with, which we appreciated, and we really felt like he was on our side as a real estate agent and a friend.
Bought and sold a Single Family home
Smart, honest, reliable, knowledgable, highly competent, friendly- all words I would use to describe Scott. He recently helped us sell our home and then buy another. He stuck with us when we were wishy-washy about when we wanted to sell, and when we made our decision, he made it happen without a glitch. When it came time to buy he was again ready at a moments notice. The first offer that we made on a home was accepted (which is unusual in this market), and I credit him with giving us good advice while we were working with him- we were well-prepared. As we were selling and buying, I felt confident in Scott's abilities and I never worried (despite being a bit of a micro-manager!). He carried us through the process with honesty and integrity. I can't recommend him enough. Thank you Scott!
As a first-time buyer, I had a lot of questions, and Scott was great at getting me up to speed on the whole process without overwhelming me. Once we found my dream house, he gave excellent advice on bidding, and I'm happy to say I got the house. Besides being really good at his job, Scott is one of the nicest and most honest guys you will ever meet.
Scott is fantastic, our entire search process was very smooth. Being new to the area, property hunting was daunting and I was not prepared for how competitive and fast the market moves. This is where Scott's impressive knowledge and experience was a godsend. He knew what was a good value and what was a waste of our time, answered all questions promptly and honestly. We had our first offer accepted and he facilitated everything efficiently, writing up the offer with addendums, making sure our preapproval was in order, speaking with the HOA to get all proper information, etc. I cannot recommend him enough and will absolutely use him for any real estate transaction in the future.
Bought a Condo home
Scott was fantastic in helping us find and purchase our condo. We were first-time buyers and would have been lost without his expertise and recommendations. Going to showings and open houses with him vs. without him was a completely different experience. For instance, his ability to point out details we otherwise might have missed (structural integrity concerns, noise carrying, lighting fixtures, etc.) and give us rough estimates on any repairs we'd need to make was incredibly helpful. One example was that he went upstairs to the neighbors above our unit and asked if they'd let him walk around to see if that noise would be an issue for us. Scott is very honest, matter-of-fact and straight-to-the-point, which was exactly what we wanted in an agent. I have already and will continue to recommend him to friends who are looking to buy in the area.
Going from 0-100 on a hotly contested property is not for the faint of heart. When this happens in the East Bay, you want Scott Ward working with you. In the span of less than 12 hours, we went from looking at a property, doing intense comp studies, getting a pre-approval letter, and putting in a clean, competitive bid. He predicted the urgency of the bidding, and got us in the right spot, at the right time.

What can I say, the masses wanted this property, and I unfortunately lost out to a bid that was almost 200k over the asking price. Sometimes old money or dot.com money wins but its all about having the right folks on your team that teaches you when to step away from an irrational bidding war.

Scott is amazing. He is knowledgeable in all facets of the real estate market. He will pull the trigger for you once he gets going, and you'll be thankful.
Bought and sold a Single Family home
Scott was our agent on two separate occasions - once when we were buying, once when we were selling. And if the chance ever presented itself, we would jump at the opportunity to work with him again.

More than any other agent, what my wife and I were so impressed with was his perspective and authenticity. From the buyers angle, Scott got personal. As we spent time together, he helped us to discover what we were looking for in a home and ultimately he brought one to the table that we closed on. Whether we were bidding, negotiating, inspecting, or closing, Scott's ability to provide context and clarity always made us feel confident in our decisions

As sellers, working with Scott was an incredibly streamlined process. We had never sold before, and having him quarterback for us was a godsend. He communicated value very clearly, and never once made us feel uncomfortable in our negotiations. I really couldn't imagine working with anyone else.

In addition to having an apparent natural affinity for real estate, Scott works extremely hard at what he does. Whether we were buying or selling, Scott wanted us to succeed, and we did so because of him.

Thank you so much!
Scott is not only a great realtor but a great consultant, advocate, and person. He helped us both buy a house in East Oakland and sell a condo in West Oakland. He was thorough and thoughtful in helping us develop action plans and timelines for these daunting tasks. I felt very confident with him on our team. He seems to know a lot about the market, houses and neighborhoods, so it was nice to bounce ideas off him and get honest straight-forward answers. He helped us flush out what was most important to us and gave us a reality check about the current market conditions. He helped us go over the pros/cons of each decision as it arose and he was very responsive to even the smallest questions/concerns. He also had great referrals and lots of connections. He seems to be well respected by other realtors and that helps a lot in negotiations. I would not hesitate to recommend Scott as a realtor.
Scott Ward did an excellent job for us when we decided to sell our home. Our house had many green upgrades and unique "urban farm" landscaping. Scott did a great job marketing this and helping us make improvements prior to sale that complimented the home's features and aesthetic. He has a remarkable network of high quality, reliable contractors that he taps into to make the property stand out when it comes time to list. Just as important, Scott stepped up to help coordinate these activities and kept everything on track and on schedule. He knows the North Oakland market intimately and accurately predicted the closing price, which came in at the upper end of our expected range. We can heartily recommend Scott to help you sell your home
Sold a home
Scott went above and beyond what we expected from a realtor when we sold our Oakland home. Not only does Scott have an intimate knowledge of the East Bay market, he's down-to-earth, easy going, honest, and an absolute pleasure to work with--the perfect blend of expertise and trustworthiness. We had total faith in Scott to help us make the right decisions and to take care of all the little details. As a result, we ended up getting far more for our house than we ever imagined. We enthusiastically recommend Scott Ward to anyone needing a realtor in the East Bay.
THE BEST REALTOR IN THE UNIVERSE. Poor Scott had to look at literally every single house for sale in the East Bay with us for 6 months! Who wants to work with a tired cranky pregnant lady right? Well he was awesome! We found the most amazing place in Glenview back in 2008. I would highly recommend him to anyone, and when we start looking to move again, he will be the guy we go to. Also he has great holiday cards and a super cute dog.
I took the time to speak with a collection of East Bay Realtors who focus their energy in the NOBE area when it was time to sell our NOBE house. I highly recommend Scott Ward. Here's why.

He's candid. You get the benefit of his experience without digging it out of him and he is refreshingly honest.

He knows the area. If you are buying or selling in the NOBE area, he knows the streets, neighborhoods and issues. If you know the area, you'll appreciate what he knows. If you don't know the area, you'll benefit tremendously from his experience.

He's serious about getting results. We set schedules and he was always ready when he said he would be ready. He arrives prepared, does a terrific job and never leaves a detail undone.

He's reliable and easy to work with. I highly recommend that you speak with him before you agree to work with anyone else.
My situation required that I choose my Realtor carefully. I had already relocated to the East Coast, and left my unsold house behind. Lucky for me, I left it in the very capable hands of Scott Ward.

I met Scott a few years back, attending open houses in North Oakland, when I was in the market to buy. When I decided to relo to Boston, and sell, Scott was my obvious choice. He knows the neighborhood, he knows the market, he tracks the very dynamic trends in the market, and adjusts accordingly. He's smart, and he knows his subject matter. He utilizes all the current tools and practices to optimize his client's experience and outcome.

I was three thousand miles away, and Scott handled EVERYTHING for me. He kept me informed, made excellent recommendations on price, timing of the sale, staging, repairs, offer, negotiations, everything - he did it all. He consulted me appropriately. Everything was handled electronically. My time investment was minimal. I could not have asked for a better experience, and a better outcome.

Scott easily won my trust, and it was well deserved. Scott is very competent, ethical, and a nice guy to boot. You can't go wrong engaging Scott Ward for real estate buy or sell in the East Bay.
I found Scott on the internet in a hurry, having a failed experience with another realtor who overpriced my condo and didn't understand the market in 2009. The first experience with Scott was an extremely trying time for me and my wife. We were about to have a baby, trying to buy a house with the market going down quickly. Scott walked us through everything. He got down on his hands and knees during open houses, checking out basements and crawl spaces for us. I've never seen that in a realtor. He understands structural issues of homes and has the willingness to dissuade his clients from buying a place. We were semi interested in a house that probably had a lot of drainage issues. I felt that having Scott talk us out of it was a great sign for us being able to trust him.

After a couple of weeks of looking, we decided on a house. Even though we were competing against another offer, Scott helped knock off 10K because of a foundation issue. I don't know if other realtors would have wheeled and dealed on our behalf, especially since we would have bought the place at full price. Scott also priced our condo just right, got multiple offers and a higher price than we expected.

So, when it came to having to unexpectedly sell our house, Scott was the only person we thought of going to. He helped me figure out what I needed to do to the house to attract people which involved a little investment, but mainly it meant updating the interior painting and a little tile work in the kitchen. Once again, he priced it right and we got nearly 100k over asking. I can't say enough good things about Scott. Now I don't live in the East Bay, I'm sad that I don't know someone with his expertise, patience, and skill. You would be very lucky to have Scott selling or buying a house for you.
Scott was recommended directly by three friends who bought their homes with him. After meeting him at one of their housewarming parties, I immediately knew I wanted to work with him when it was time to start my own search. Months later, that time had come, and I contacted him. After a meeting to discuss my priorities for what I wanted in a home, he agreed that it might take a while to find what I wanted, where I wanted, but I was in no rush. We looked at a few places together, and in doing so he refined his view of my likes, dislikes, and desires. A few places that I might have jumped at, he convinced me to hold back, and be patient, that something even better would be along sooner than later - he was so right.

I had been renting in a desirable East Bay neighborhood for years, and although I would have loved to buy there, I was pretty sure I'd never find anything in my price range that wasn't a total fixer-upper (not what I wanted). So I was fully prepared to move to another neighborhood, but we both kept our eyes open just in case. One Saturday evening I happened to see a new listing pop up just a couple blocks away. I looked at it on my own the next morning (Scott was out of town till Monday) I loved it and texted Scott about it. He looked at it himself as soon as he got back on Monday morning and agreed that it fit exactly what I was looking for.

He then sprang into action, making suggestions and doing everything he could to find ways to make my offer more appealing than the rest in such a competitive area. The deal we came up with was unusual, to say the least, but after a week and a half of constant communication, referrals, planning, decision-making, and running around on his part, my offer was accepted. I would never have known such things were possible without Scott and even if I did, I couldn't have pulled them off that quickly.

Thanks to Scott, I now own my first home, in a neighborhood I love, and where I never thought I'd be able to afford a house. I've since recommended him to other friends, and will continue to do so.
Scott is my hero. I may be a little in love with him, but not in a creepy way. I found him on Yelp a few months ago, and asked him to help me sell my home in Richmond. He is smart, quick, efficient, and really knows his business and the area. I had a totally different sales plan in mind before I met him, but his much better plan was magical. He missed nothing. He found me a handyman to get the house ready to sell, he helped me stage, he brought in a professional photographer, he advertised in every possible place and websites as well and designed very professional and well-written flyers. In one week we had multiple offers way above asking price. He definitely went above and beyond anything I could have expected. I've sold property several times in my life. This is the first time I gladly paid a commission to the sales people. (It so happens that the buyers also had a professional and thorough realtor.) Scott returned calls quickly and made time to deal with my stress and questions. His follow-through was complete. If I had a problem with anyone involved, one call to Scott, and it was taken care of, pronto. I think if you want to write your own plan, run your own show, and stick to it, Scott isn't your guy, but if you are willing to listen to someone who is incredibly savvy, smart, and knowledgable, and do it his way, Scott is the right guy for you. Not that he doesn't listen, he yielded to my wishes in several things, but I am so glad I went with his plan instead of mine. He knows his business and this area.
We found Scott after he helped two of our friends purchase their first homes. Scott was so great to work with, he made every part of the process easy to understand, and made us feel comfortable throughout the entire process.

The selling agent for our house wasn't the most helpful or motivated agent to work with, but Scott bent over backwards and went far beyond what is expect out of a buying agent to ensure that the sale process went as smoothly as possible.

If you are looking to buy a home in the Berkeley or Oakland area, we can't recommend Scott enough. He has to be one of the best agents out there.