Blog

Buying a home is never really about the part you can see on the tour. It’s about what sits behind the walls and inside the paperwork — and nowhere is that more true than in the disclosure package. A while back I was working with buyers who were serious — pre-approved, motivated, watching the market…

Most homeowners worry about the mortgage. What quietly gets people into real trouble is everything around it — and near the top of that list is California property taxes. They feel simple until they’re not. One missed year turns into two, and two turns into a balance that grows while life keeps moving. One of…

The scariest part of owning a home usually isn’t the mortgage — it’s the home maintenance. Knowing what needs attention, when it needs it, and what happens if you miss something. Roofs, foundations, paint, pests, drainage. The list never ends, and most people can’t keep it all straight. How could they? A family friend sent…

At the close of every year, I find myself thinking about the people who make this work possible — and about why we built this kind of real estate brokerage in the first place. Building Primavera Realty from the ground up was not easy. It keeps growing for one reason: the people around us. Clients,…

Some of the trickiest deals don’t fall apart because of the price — they get complicated because of the financing. A city-backed loan is a perfect example: a program that helps a buyer get in the door, but one that almost always means a longer escrow and more hoops to jump through. One of our…

Every so often a story comes along that’s funny, a little sad, and a perfect lesson in why due diligence isn’t optional. This is one of them. A seller called me, thrilled with a recent purchase. She had bought a piece of “land” in San Francisco at auction — paying $400 for the parcel, plus…

One of the trickiest transactions in real estate is the simultaneous close — when the money from selling one home has to fund the purchase of another, and both deals have to land in sync. Our buyers were moving cross-country from New York to San Francisco. They’d already accepted an offer on their New York…

Two things quietly decide how a sale goes: how fast you respond, and how honestly you price. A listing we didn’t win taught us both — and it’s worth sharing if you’re thinking about pricing your home. A potential seller reached out, said they weren’t quite ready, then called back urgently wanting to meet right…

Buying a duplex or small multi-unit building can be a smart way into San Francisco — live in one unit, rent the other. But if there’s a long-term renter in place, a tenant-occupied home comes with rules that can reshape your plans. We were helping a buyer purchase a San Francisco duplex, planning to live…

When you buy into a homeowners association, the HOA documents are every bit as important as the inspection report — and an HOA special assessment you didn’t know about can become your problem the moment you own the home. We were representing a buyer in escrow on a property within an HOA. As is standard,…