Lembu Real Estate

She was great.  I would tell a friend that I thought she did her job well. 

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Maria McFarland is the best real estate agent servicing the Cambridge area, period. Compared to a number of other real estate agents we had worked with in the past, Maria is the most professional, knowledgeable, conscientious, insightful, reliable, and patient person...and an impressive negotiator.
Before we found Maria, we had worked with another real estate agent to help us find a home in Boston. We had been looking remotely from Nashville and had placed 3 offers on homes we flew out to see in person on separate occasions. Each time our offer was denied. We decided that by the third failure, we needed to change our strategy. We found Lembu through Angie's List and connected with Maria because we liked her profile. Maria was very familiar with the competitive housing market in Cambridge/Somerville and from Day 1, and knew exactly what we did wrong and what we had to do right. While we did much of the initial house hunting online, Maria was always available to swing by an open house or schedule a visit to check out a house if we were not able to be in town. Even when she came down with a bitter cold, she trucked out to an open house and managed to take some pictures for us. She also provided extremely helpful comments on each of the homes that we were interested in.
Maria's talent really emerged when we found a home that we were pretty sure was The One. My husband flew out for the weekend house tour, which included this house, and Maria put together an itinerary and strategy that would maximize our appeal to the sellers. My husband was able to develop a rapport with the sellers and Maria helped us create the perfect offer. While the owners themselves chose not be represented by an agent, they were happy to work with Maria. We later learned that our offer was chosen out of about 15 other offers. We successfully closed in early November 2013 and Maria even supervised the move later that month when we were not able to be present. Even months later, Maria continues to be a great resource for all things house-related--inspectors, contractor, handyman. Without Maria, our house hunt would not have been nearly as enjoyable or rewarding. And that is saying a lot for what can be a long, frustrating process.
I would wholeheartedly recommend Maria to anyone looking for the perfect home in Cambridge/Somerville. She is simply amazing.

There's too much to describe in a review but suffice to say Mike is an AMAZING agent. He worked with us from start to finish and was responsive, proactive and a joy to work with. Before our house search began both my husband and I couldn't understand why anyone would use a realtor and we tried for a few months to search on our own. Being introduced to Mike and working with him was a stroke of luck and honestly, I don't know how we could have found the place we did or negotiated the process without his wisdom and assistance. Mike's experience is owning multi-families in the Boston area was invaluable and it goes without saying that his knowledge for the home buying processes is exceptional. If you're looking for an amazing agent we'd emphatically recommend Lembu Real Estate.

I found Lembu from Yelp's great review and hired Mike as my agent to sell my condo. Later on I found that I did not just hire Mike. I hired his entire team to work for me closely to sell my condo! In the end, I was happily signing my Pand S THREE WEEKS after first open house!!

I was first-time seller and needed a lot of help about the process. Mike is very knowledgeable, open and straight forward about every question I asked during our first meeting. His team and I worked together through staging and open house to highlight the best features of my condo. Mike always responded my emails promptly and kept my updated with status of potential buyers/buyer's agents.

On strategy of selling my condo, Mike is data-driven in explaining current market condition and helped me to set right expectation. He constantly updated me with the market, and we will discuss about whether to adjust our strategy to be more aggressive or wait-and-see in responding to potential buyers. I never felt left alone and appreciated with Mike's openness in communication.

Being first time seller, I would hope that Mike could have helped me more in making decisions when negotiating final price. Sometimes I felt overwhelmed by the information from Mike and not really sure how to make a good decision.

I will definitely recommend my friends to go to Mike for selling houses. Can't really complain much about selling mine in three weeks!!

Lots of positive feedback for Mike and Lembu already, but I felt it was important for me to share as well, if only to say that the team is as great as everyone says it is.

My wife and I purchased our first condo in the summer of 2011. We were really new to the process, but Mike walked us through the entire thing. He started by giving us the questions that we should be asking when choosing to work with a real estate agent and never assumed that he or a member of his team would be our answer.

Then as we first visited properties, he helped us to see the things that we would not have seen on our own because we lacked experience (in particular, he has an eye for resale value). As time went on, we began to understand and see for ourselves and he encouraged our observations.

Although Mike was our primary agent and he really tried to be available as much as possible, there were a few times where we wanted to see a place on short notice and he could not be there; in those rare cases we were helped by his associates Aaron and Cathy who made themselves just as available. The team made it possible for Lembu to serve our crazy schedules!

This review would not be complete without a mention of some of Lembu's tools. In particular, Lembu provided booklets of all the places we visited with details gleaned from the MLS and other listing sites which were incredibly helpful both when we visited and afterwards when we were trying to remember details of the many properties we visited.

And yes, we are now proud owners of a condo and we love it. Thanks, Lembu Real Estate!

Mike is incredibly patient, honest, intelligent, straightforward, and dedicated. He has a great personality and style that makes him a very effective real estate agent without being pushy or overbearing. We also really enjoyed working with his colleague, Esther Na, who assisted us on a couple of occasions. There were many potential road blocks along the way with this purchase (It was new construction after all) and Mike handled them all smoothly and efficiently. He clearly cares deeply about his work and the service that he provides his clients is outstanding! My wife and I have each bought a home in the past and we both agree without a doubt that Mike is the best real estate agent that we've worked with, without a doubt.

I am a high-maintenance client, looking for a special kind of agent. I found Mike Park at Lembu Real Estate through Yelp reviews and his company website. Mike is an agent with unusual integrity and talents. His style is soft-spoken and calm, but underneath his easygoing manner is a relentless devotion to knowledge and service. It became clear through our discussions that Mike genuinely enjoys educating his clients and has a gift for listening well to their priorities instead of projecting his own. He responds fast and thoroughly to all questions, and I had more than most clients. His computer skills are formidable; he will make your daily search simple by crunching the details and handing it all to you with a few quick clicks on your home computer. He has a special interest in residential investment property and knows people in the construction trade that can address buyers' concerns. Throughout my search, Mike gave valuable advice. There is a level of loyalty, skill and dedication in Mike that is exceptional.

We worked with Mike for a few months this summer, in order to find an investment property in the Cambridge area. Our search was successful, with Mike's help.
Mike is perfect if you are looking for:
- an expert in the Cambridge real estate market
- a guiding hand in how to purchase a property, no matter if it is your primary home or an investment. Mike listens very well and can adapt to your needs
- an extremely patient and honest real estate agent who will discuss any concerns you have, at length, without rushing you into anything
- someone who is open to feedback. Mike repeatedly asked us for feedback and was very willing to change his approach in order to help us best

Mike is like a friend who you can trust with real estate advice. He is polite and never pushy. We would recommend Mike to anyone who is new to the Cambridge market or who is looking to purchase their first home and needs to learn about the ABCs of home buying. His gentle and dedicated style would put any buyer at ease, and his conscientious approach makes you feel like all bases are covered.

Although we were not million-dollar clients, Mike took the time to talk us through any concerns we had, and showed us many many many properties until we found the right one. After we closed, Mike took the time to follow up for one more round of feedback and to see the renovations we had done to the place (so far). We are high energy and pretty picky, so I definitely appreciate every bit of Mike's patience and guidance through our home-buying process.

Mike Park and Lembu Real Estate were wonderful to work with. As first time homebuyers, my husband and I had much to be anxious about. But Mike and his team put us at complete ease from the start. Mike's been in town for years and knows the neighborhoods like a local and ndash; the pros and cons of each neighborhood block, the culture of particular city streets. He knows the market, when a property will be quick to go, and you should act fast. Or when it's better to wait it out. Trained as a mechanical engineer (at MIT), Mike can see the potential of a fixer-upper, and even estimate the costs for the project on the spot. And he taught us to tell the difference between quality renovations, fixtures, and appliances from all the rest. And with flashlight, tape measure, compass in hand, he was prepared to explore basements and attics, and all the nooks and crannies of buildings. All very helpful when dealing with an old historic city like Boston/Cambridge. Plus, he has an incredible amount of integrity and was always looking out for our best interest. He was happy to show us properties multiple times, and never put any pressure on us to make a decision. He was a great sounding board with each property we visited, asking and answering questions we hadn't even thought to ask. He was honest about both the pros and cons of each property, and he went out of his way to gather the information we needed to make our decisions. Along the way, finding the right home always felt like the priority over getting the best commission. The Lembu team was always accessible and available. We would email questions and ask for comps late into the night, and be surprised to find thoughtful, detailed response by the morning. As academic types, we particularly appreciated the detailed market analyses, Moreover, Lembu accommodated all the showings we were interested in, often with very short notice. They were also great at educating us about the many steps to homebuying -- the ebbs and flows of the spring and fall markets, commonly used tactics in staging and selling, etc. Most of all, Mike is passionate about real estate and building communities. He genuinely loves what he does, and cares about your finding the right place to call home. We felt we were in good hands the entire time with the Lembu team throughout the process. We'd highly recommend them.

As interest rates were low and properties more reasonably priced, I thought that it might be a good time to consider purchasing an investment property. I didn’t really know what I was doing and after seeing a beautiful condo online, I contacted Mike. With his help and advice, I saw the property and put an offer down. For various reasons, the offer didn’t go through and at that point, I thought that it was not the right time to purchase a second home. Several months later, Mike sent me a listing. It wasn’t something I thought I’d be interested in, but we went to see it anyway. Within a few days, Mike was able to negotiate a very reasonable price for me and we had an accepted offer. Even though I never imagined myself buying a 2 family home, it seemed like a perfect fit for me. Mike was able to help me clearly define and understand the potential of an investment property. As a landlord himself, Mike gave me great advice on leases, rental units, maintenance, etc. With his wealth of contacts, he was able to provide me with recommendations to contractors and others in the business. Even if you are not a first time home buyer, the process is extremely confusing and there is a ton of paperwork to manage. And when you are dealing with hundreds of thousands of dollars, anxiety always comes into play. Although Mike was always responsive and communicated clearly, I feel like he could have alleviated some of the uncertainty by taking initiative in providing more details about the process, especially with ‘next steps’. But even as I mentioned this critique to him, he took it very well and he is clearly working to streamline and improve his business for the benefit of his clients. Even as the process was stressful, with Mike as my broker, I always felt like I had a partner and ally. He always represented my wishes and intentions, regardless of how he felt. He also encouraged me to be patient and talked with me until I was calm, both of which I really appreciated and helped in the end. I had a very positive experience with him, and I would recommend anyone to work with him. I had always heard from friends and professionals in the business that Mike Park of Lembu Real Estate was the best in Cambridge. But after working with him, I can say that he is simply *the best*. Mike is extremely thoughtful in his representation of clients, is intelligent, honest, and loves what he does.

Please see above for the story.

Mike is a knowledgeable and professional agent. When we started looking for a home in early spring, we were considering buying in the spring or possibly not until summer. We weren't even sure if we wanted to buy in Cambridge, Somerville, or Dorchester. Given our parameters (price range, public transit accessibility, size of home, etc.) Mike showed us places that helped us decide that one of two neighborhoods in Dorchester would be right for us. We were able to look fairly efficiently, without viewing an excessive number of houses (or an excessive number of times per house), as we got a better idea of what we were looking for. This was in part because Mike was well-attuned to what we did or did not like about a given house. Mike consistently made sure he understood our thoughts on a house and that he was representing our interests in the way we wanted him too. He advised us on bids, which was no easy task because several of the houses we looked at were quite unique. We were all convinced that the house we eventually bought was overpriced, put in a lower bid, and walked away when the sellers didn't seem to want to negotiate enough -- because while we liked the house, we were ok with not getting it. When the sellers later contacted Mike about whether we'd be interested in talking again, as we'd hoped they might, we had already put the house-hunting on hold. Since we were still interested in the house, Mike made the process as easy and efficient as possible for us to pick back up and complete the purchase of the home in the midst of a very busy time for us. We have been moved in to our new house for some time now and feel like it was the right house on the right terms. We are particularly happy not to have bought the most expensive house we could have possibly qualified for, and Mike certainly did not push us toward the more expensive houses. A disclaimer: we knew Mike before we hired him as our agent. We weren't entirely sure we should hire him, just because it might be awkward if his style didn't mesh with ours, but Mike is incredibly professional as an agent and we needn't have worried! We certainly recommend him.

My husband and I just had a baby and had a deadline to move out of our un-deleaded apartment asap. We knew it was pretty impossible to find our very first home within a span of three months…but Mike was awesome! He found us a home that was so much more than what we bargained for. He was very patient and taught us how the housing market worked. It was our first home so we knew absolutely nothing about homes. He not only answered ALL our questions about the housing market, but also even home improvement questions. Mike’s knowledge and experience of being a landlord in Cambridge makes him one of the best realtors out here. He really looked out for our interest and asked the selling agents questions we couldn’t even think of asking. We really felt like Mike was on our team, as opposed to scheming with the selling agent to make more money. Mike was also very prompt in returning my calls/emails to show us around, even three to four times a week. Mike NEVER pressured us to buy any house just so he could make a profit. In fact, he never complained when we wanted to see a house for the third or fourth time. He was always very calm and professional. When we finally decided on a house, Mike walked us through the ENTIRE process of buying our home. Mike even checked up on us to see if everything was working properly in our new home after the purchase. All in all, we would not hesitate to hire him again to buy and even sell our home when that time comes.