Change is Good! 🌟
I have always been the kind of person who hates it when I see one person driving in an enormous SUV, or I hear about two people taking a jet to NY by themselves. It feels so wasteful.
Well, I also felt that way about my office on Ashby. It was big—huge really—and beautiful, but since we opened the office right before the pandemic, and I allowed my employees to work from home, plus I have a totally rad home office, the office never became what I had hoped it would: a fully functional space where everyone came together to do real estate.
We have been rocking and rolling in real estate, just not from that office.
Since we were literally never there, I let my friend and piano teacher—the great Eric Lenchner—teach lessons out of the space. I used it for rehearsals for my play. 🎠My playwriting group has met there. I invited the merchants association to use it for their meetings. My friend Tara used it for a retreat once. In short, it was barely used, and I felt guilty about it.
I gave a lot of thought to how it would look if I shuttered the space. I feared people would somehow think I was no longer the top producer that I am and continue to be. Then I had a brilliant idea: my friends at Berkeley Humane wanted to branch out and expand their thrift store on Solano. The Elmwood is a kick-ass shopping district that could use their store, and most importantly to me, the space would be helping Berkeley Humane and saving animals, which is one of my goals in life!
So it is with delight that I announce that I am no longer in the space at 2644 Ashby, and Berkeley Humane is going to be up and running a thrift store in the location as of November 1. They will announce it too, but I am so excited I wanted to tell you!
This is the best of all worlds: I get to help Berkeley Humane, stop being one person driving in a gigantic SUV, and the world will be a better place!
Speaking of Berkeley Humane, and all animal rescue organizations, as well as arts organizations, they need your help. In political seasons, they always suffer because a lot of money that would have ordinarily gone to them goes to fund political campaigns. Please give generously if you can!
As for real estate: There is a change going on in the market. More buyers are out, and more houses are actually selling. People are getting used to the new requirements around buyer-broker agreements, commissions, and the like. We are pretty much at the end of the selling season in November when you are receiving this magazine, but there is every likelihood of at least one more interest rate drop this month, which will likely mean more buyers are capable of buying right around Thanksgiving. Also, surprisingly, a lot of sales do occur through the end of the year.
So if you are thinking of selling, this is still a good time. But be reasonable in your expectations. Rule of thumb is to look at pricing in the 2019-2020 time frame. We are unlikely to see prices like 2021 for a very long time. But if you can wrap your mind around this, your sale will be super successful.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! 🦃 I am grateful to all of you reading this article!
