Feb 23, 2012
Kate Blanchard
This review is long, long overdue. I just wanted to say that Suzanne O'Brien is a truly excellent agent--and will be our agent for every real estate dealing we have in the future. We have worked with a number of not great realtors over the years, but all that changed when we met Suzanne about 4 years ago.
Our budget was limited and our "must have" list pretty long (namely, we wanted a single family home in a nice neighborhood with good schools--a challenging feat in the bay area!). We looked up and down the peninsula with Suzanne for about 2 1/2 years (so I can confidently say she is very patient!). Suzanne could not have been a better agent--or friend--to us. She listened to and really internalized all our needs, found properties that met our criteria (which often meant that she worked with other realtors to find us properties that were not yet on the market), and gave us thoughtful, insightful feedback when looking at houses, identifying the strengths and draw-backs of various properties to ensure that our property would be both a good investment and a good fit for our family as our kids got older.
Most impressive, Suzanne knows all of the ins and outs of the school districts on the peninsula and in the South Bay, and was a wonderful resource in narrowing our search to those areas that would best suit our family. She NEVER pushed or tried to talk us into anything; in fact, she gently talked us out of one house, telling us that she really thought we should find one that we loved--not just one that could work (and she was right!). Suzanne really went the extra mile for us: She did everything from entertaining our kids while we toured houses, so my husband and I could discuss them without interruption, to having her friend, a stager, come over to help us pick out paint colors after we bought our house, to putting us in touch with honest, capable, and appropriately-priced contractors and professionals.
Most important, Suzanne is just a really nice, fair, calm, honest, easy-to-talk-to person. To this day, we continue to be friends and frequently call her when we need help finding contractors or advice about updating our home. She is a pleasure to work with, and when we finally found "our" home, she worked quickly to secure it for us at a great price. Suzanne is both an amazing person and amazingly good at her job, and I cannot recommend her highly enough!