Sep 24, 2013
Alessio Deotto
Eichler lover who found the perfect house
Our amazing race in finding a house in the South Bay started mid-January this year (2013).
We are a young couple, with no real estate experience whatsoever, but with a huge desire to find our spot in the Sunnyvale Fairbrae neighborhood or in its immediate vicinities.
We went to visit a couple of Open Houses during the first weekend and stumbled upon a gorgeous, newly remodeled Eichler in the very middle of our preferred neighborhood.
The seller’s agent hosting the open house, was a smiling lady who was very good in answering our silly in a informative way and made us feel like we were not that inexperienced after all.
We loved the house so much that, even though we only saw another 2 houses, we were ready to put in an offer in the next 2 days.
We made it to the top 3 bidders’ list, but unfortunately we could not compete against the best offer.
It did not take us too long to figure out that the market was quickly turning into a Sellers’ Market. We bid on 3 more houses in the same neighborhood, and lost them as we were either not competitive or not really happy with the house itself.
After the 4th consecutive loss, we found ourselves sounding like a broken record: “oh I so wish we won the first Eichler. We loved that house so much, it was really meant to be ours!”. Then the light bulb went off in our mind.
Let’s dig up the follow-up email we received from that Eichler home Seller’s agent and let’s see if she can help.
That’s how we got to know Maureen. We contacted her around mid February asking if she was willing to represent us as buyers. In a matter of 2 days we were all setup through her systems, filled questionnaires and she started working on finding our perfect place.
We went to visit several houses with her in the first 2 weeks and she was able to narrow down exactly what we were looking for… she realized how stubborn we were and that we were going to be happy only if we could find a house that was similar to (or we could have turned into) the first Eichler we lost and in the same neighborhood.
She pulled creativity and improvisation out of her toolbox and started visiting the neighborhood to do some intelligence; talking to people she was able to figure out there was an Eichler original owner who was very much inclined to sell his property, but did not want to go through all the process required to find a realtor, prepping up the house and put it on the market.
Maureen wrote the owner a letter talking to him about our situation and serious intention to buy the property and a few days later we were invited to visit the house.
It was in a decent condition, even though it required some serious remodeling to make it fit our taste, but we were able to see beyond the 1960s ugliness.
That same weekend we put in our offer and it was accepted by the owner in less than 48 hours. This was only 4 weeks after we first contacted Maureen.
We were (and still are) at a loss for words to describe the unbelievable job Maureen did. She has taken care of us in every possible way, making us feel like it was her own mission to land us the perfect house at the perfect price for us, in a market that was running crazy everywhere we turned.
We are now in the middle of remodeling the house and cannot wait to see it completed to be able to show Maureen what her contribution was in one of the most important things we are doing in our life.
Alessio & Vivienne