In the past few months, I’ve closed escrow on the following properties:
17 Serra Way – Terra Linda, $1,465,000 on 4/6/24 (excluded from the MLS)
31 Indian Rd – Los Ranchitos, $1,799,000 on 5/1/24
553 Miller Creek Rd – Marinwood, $1,300,000 on 5/6/24
861 Greenberry Lane – Lucas Valley, $2.155,000 on 6/3/24
853 Las Pavadas Ave – Terra Linda, $1,360,000 6/28/24
611 Tanbark Terrace – Terra Linda, asking $1,210,000 7/26/24
I have the following properties currently in escrow:
708 Lamont Ave – Novato, asking $818,888
1004A Los Gamos Rd – Terra Linda, asking $349,000
I also represented both the landlord and tenants in a Terra Linda rental transaction off the MLS. We were going to put the property on the MLS, but a neighbor referred the tenant to us and we were able to put together a lease that hopefully will be extended for many years to come. Because it’s a good story, expect to see more on this in a separate blog later this year. As a reminder, I do help people with rentals.
Selling real estate full time since 2004, this year’s production isn’t exceptional, nor is it anything I take for granted. I’m grateful to be able to make a living selling homes, and for being of service to my clients. I look forward to selling real estate at least for the next 10 years. At some point everyone retires, but in the meantime, I’m preparing to bring one of my daughters into the business. An extremely bright, talented and hardworking young lady, Sabrina Falk is taking real estate classes this summer, in addition to working 3 part time jobs up at Davis. She’ll be graduating from UC Davis after next spring, and if all goes according to plan, Sabrina will be teaming up with me at Coldwell Banker in San Rafael next summer!
Real estate is one of those businesses that kids learn early from their parents. It’s not unusual to see father/daughter or mother/son teams. The truth is, my daughters have been stuffing newsletters for me (earning, saving & investing money) since they were pre-teens, most of which they’ve read. They’ve helped me with staging and with all phases of home preparation. In addition to being financially literate before hitting puberty, Sabrina will be joining me with a very solid, practical real estate knowledge base. Over the years I’ve built up a good business, and I’d love to see her keep it going when I eventually retire!
This Week in the Water
I only got out to the beach once this week, which is not usual. While I’d prefer to surf twice a week to keep in paddling shape, the windows for finding good surf are ephemeral this time of year. That will change in the fall, as the waves get better and opportunities more plentiful. Meanwhile, things are pretty sketchy in our Red Triangle. I’ve recently written about seals gathering near me for protection at Stinson Beach, a munched sea lion washed up at Bolinas, and now to add to the atmosphere of fear my session this week at Ocean Beach was pretty spooky. There were a ton of fishing boats, up and down the two mile stretch of beach. Whatever fish they were going after, there were bigger fish going after them, and so up the food chain all the way to the top.
I got in the water at Noriega Street in part because there were six other surfers in the water. Ominously, there were also three fishing boats not far off the break. In the back of my head I could hear the Jaws theme music. As if I needed anything more to be uneasy about, soon all the other surfers left the water and I found myself alone: yikes! I was getting some pretty fun waves, as Noriega has fairly reliable sandbars, so I wasn’t alone in the water more than 10 minutes before several other surfers joined me. At that point I was breathing a lot easier and I left the water without incident. As a side note, a few years back one of the Surfline cameras caught a great white shark leaping out of the water at Ocean Beach. They are out there, and fortunately we aren’t normally on the menu.
Looking ahead, the dog days of summer are here, and I don’t know if the surf will be any good anytime soon. Fall can’t come soon enough. I guess in the meantime I’ll mostly stick to writing about real estate, and watching the best surfers in the world tackle one of the most dangerous waves on the planet at the 2024 Olympics in Tahiti.