Community Guides
Communities I Serve
Full buyer's guides to every market I work in — current data, neighborhood breakdowns, and the things that catch out-of-area buyers off guard.
Most of my clients are moving somewhere they have never lived, and a city's reputation tells you almost nothing about what it is actually like to buy a house there. On the Bay Area Peninsula — where I do most of my work — the difference between two towns fifteen minutes apart can be a million dollars, a completely different school district, and an entirely different set of rules about what you are allowed to build.
So I write it down. Pick a community below.
North Dakota
Where you can still negotiate
A genuinely balanced market with room to inspect and negotiate. Includes the $1,600 Primary Residence Credit new homeowners routinely leave unclaimed.
Fargo, West Fargo, Horace, or Moorhead — the choice sets your schools, taxes, and flood insurance. Plus what the diversion project means for your premiums.
The fastest-appreciating market I cover, at a median under $300K. Plus the $409M flood system that now protects the city to a 500-year event.
Bay Area Peninsula
My primary market
A real downtown, a tree ordinance dating to 1908, and the best 1920s housing stock on the Peninsula. Also the closest city to SFO.
Built on engineered fill around a 218-acre lagoon. Four in five homes now sell over asking, and the levee bond on the tax bill is the cost nobody mentions.
The tightest inventory anywhere on the Peninsula — about eleven days' worth — and three separate elementary school districts inside one small city.
Cheaper than Palo Alto and somehow more competitive, with more than eight in ten homes selling above asking. Includes the Los Altos school boundary most buyers miss.
The market where list price means the least. Neighborhood breakdown, the Palo Alto Unified premium, and how offers actually work here.
Under three-quarters of a month of inventory, and a neighborhood with a Redwood City address that attends an entirely different school district.
The one Peninsula city where you can still choose your price point — neighborhood medians run from roughly $1.3M to $3.4M inside the same borders.
San Diego
Coastal California
Seven miles of beach, the fastest appreciation of any market I cover, and four school districts inside one city. Plus what Mello-Roos really costs each month.
The one market I cover where the buyer has leverage — over nine months of inventory. Plus what HOA dues really cost, building by building.
Where nearly a third of listings fail to sell, almost all of them at the top of the market. Plus what the Coastal Commission means before you plan a remodel.
Why three regions?
I am licensed in both California and North Dakota, which is less unusual than it sounds and more useful than you would expect. A large share of the moves I handle are between markets that behave in opposite ways.
On the Peninsula, waiving contingencies is routine and the list price is a marketing decision. In Bismarck, inspection contingencies are normal, homes sit for weeks, and asking for repairs is expected. Buyers get hurt when they carry the habits of one market into the other, and a lot of what I do is translating between them.
Not seeing your city?
These are the communities I write about most, not the limits of where I work. I also help clients across San Mateo and Santa Clara County — San Carlos, Belmont, Millbrae, Los Altos, Sunnyvale, Half Moon Bay — throughout the Bismarck-Mandan and Fargo-Moorhead metros, and across San Diego County. If you are looking somewhere not listed here, just ask. If it is genuinely outside my area, I will tell you and connect you with someone good rather than pretend otherwise.
Not sure which community fits?
That is usually the right question to start with, and it is worth a conversation before you start touring. Tell me your budget, your commute, and whether schools are driving the search — I can narrow it down quickly.