RE/MAX BAYVIEW, Deborah Wood

Deborah was recommended to me by a college at work who loved working with her. He had purchased several properties in Santa Cruz and had nothing but rave reviews, especially since he had worked with several other agents in the area and was not pleased. After contacting Deborah by email she promptly responded to me we were able to talk the next day. I was instantly impressed how easy going and knowledgeable she was about the entire coast from Santa Cruz, all the way down to pacific grove, Salinas, and Prunedale! At the time I had just listed my property in the San Joaquin Valley, so I was nervous that she would not want to waste her time showing me around. The contrary was true! She immediately schedule a visit around my schedule to all the areas of interest. During one such visit I had to take my kids and she was so understanding and even offered us time to take them to the park when they started to get bored of seeing houses. She sent me all the new listings from the MLS almost daily, so once my house sold we were able to quickly find a beautiful house in the perfect location. What I like most about Deborah is her flexibility and kindness, coupled with her strong work ethic and ability to turn up the heat when necessary. She got the job done with grace. I couldn't have been happier!

Deborah was really easy to work with and knowledgeable about real estate prices and neighborhoods. She accommodated our schedule so that we could see all the properties we were interested in while we were in town (from Seattle) to look at homes in the Santa Cruz/Aptos area. And we made multiple trips to do so. Deborah organized our tours of properties to make the most of our time, and was ever so patient with our questions. It was very comfortable working with Deborah. She is not someone who pushes a property on a client; she let us make our own decisions. But had good advice to offer. She wisely suggested we make our offer to include all the contents of the condo we ended up purchasing, so that we could both use and rent the condo right away. She has good relations with other realtors, which can be an advantage when making an offer. And she has a network of inspectors she can call on. She is consistently polite, patient, and diplomatic. I'd highly recommend her.

Deborah is amazing! We moved to CA from CT and had initial bad luck with realtor recommendations from friends. I found Deborah on Yelp and, even though there were relatively few reviews, I took a chance since they were glowing. I honestly can't imagine a better realtor. Deborah is everything you could hope for and more: She answered emails/texts/calls with a speed that must severely compromise her personal life. We were after our and quot;Forever Houseand quot; (needless to say, the bar was pretty high even tho we didn't necessarily know what that meant) and took multiple months to look at ~150+ properties (AKA realtor's worst nightmare). Deborah was patient and exceptionally pleasant throughout the entire process, all the while making us feel like a top priority. The house we ended up buying was probably the truest test of Deborah's character. The seller and their realtor rendered the process a bit of a nightmare. As an example, we weren't allowed to see the basement unless/until we made an offer (!?!?!?!!?!?). The seller left a huge amount of stuff behind - which delayed the closing, a problem given that we had movers arriving with our stuff according to a pre-arranged schedule - and, not only did Deborah work to get the seller to agree to pay for hauling, she scheduled the haulers so they were ready to go the second we secured the required signatures. When the amount set aside didn't cover what was needed, she even offered her husband and truck to finish the job. Also, during our inspection we found that a jacuzzi tub and the oven weren't working. After it became clear that we weren't going to get anywhere with the seller, Deborah bought us - despite objections - a 1-year home warranty plan to facilitate getting them fixed. To this day, she continues to check-in from time to time to make sure we're doing OK. Moving requires a lot of stressful decisions. You can check and quot;Choose a realtorand quot; off your list.

We were working with a previous realtor who was very responsive to helping us see properties, but pushed us just to bid sight unseen without details and to figure out if we actually wanted the property later which we were very uncomfortable with. Deborah came recommended from a realtor north of San Francisco that we had worked with for many years on property purchases to the north. She immediately told us her background and gave us letters of recommendation. She set us up with listing notifications, but was also very aware of what was on the market, the condition of the properties before we spent time viewing them and arranged timely initial viewings that suited my daughter and son-in-law's busy schedule always being sure feedback was received between all 3 parties (herself, may daughter and son-in-law, myself and my husband). When my daughter saw the property, there was already an offer on it. Deborah found out as many particulars about the home and one by the same builder across the street for sale as she could within hours. She guided us through the preparation of our offer package and told us how to make it more attractive to the seller though we were most likely going to make a lower offer (3% earnest money, letter of introduction, using local bank and loan provider from the area, disclosure of financial documents showing our ability to follow through on the offer). We were thrilled when our offer was accepted by the seller, but ran into a glitch when the bank approval didn't include money promised to the seller for proceeding with a short sale rather than foreclosure. The seller refused to officially notify us of bank acceptance until the bank paid the promised money which meant the clock was ticking but we couldn't proceed with inspections, etc. We were flying to California for a wedding and Deborah persuaded the seller to permit us to view the house and proceed with the inspections even though she still wouldn't release it formally. It saved us an additional flight out and was worth risking the inspection money to see if we even wanted to proceed with the property. (Deborah also recommended some outstanding inspectors.) The bank eventually gave the seller the money and we were able to proceed with loan appraisal and funding with Deborah giving us frequent updates on the behind the scenes negotiations while we waited anxiously. We were unable to obtain the loan in the time period left due to the delay, but Deborah got us an extension and permission to allow fumigation of the property before closing so it was ready for necessary repairs to be completed before my son-in-law and daughter needed to move in. She was always available for the armies of contractors I sent for bids on the necessary repair work in a timely fashion and was quick to let us know about the response of the contractors we had selected. She also kept abreast of all the multitude of paperwork and made it easy for us to complete including hounding the loan people so it was funded in time for closing on December 27th. A joy to work with!

When my wife and I started searching for a real estate agent to help us purchase a 2nd home in Aptos (about an hour away from our primary residence) we asked around for recommendations. The first agent who was recommended to us by a friend in the area never returned my phone call, so I kept looking. I turned to a trusted agent near our home and she recommended Deborah Wood without hesitation. Deborah has lived and worked in the Santa Cruz area for many years, and her expertise was very helpful in helping us finding the right house. Our schedules didn't allow us to view houses during week days, but Deborah never had a problem spending time with us to show us houses on weekends and she responded to texts and emails promptly, even after traditional business hours. (I'm not commenting on price, as her fee was paid for by the seller.) She made herself available to provide access to contractors to get quotes (saving my wife and I hours of driving time) and used an online document-signing service which allowed us to sign paperwork electronically which was another big time saver. She was always friendly, professional, prompt, and pleasant to work with, and I have absolutely no complaints whatsoever.