1985 and two years out of college was the year we bought our first home. A family friend, who was having no luck selling his rundown rental, offered to help with the financing if we took it off his hands. We said “yes” on the spot, draining our minimal savings.
We offered a room to a contractor in exchange for remodeling services and over the next year, we cleaned, painted and remodeled it.
In the end, it still wasn’t a Taj Mahal, but we sold it for more than we paid and put nearly $50,000 in our pocket. With that money, we bought another fixer upper, and a townhouse to live in. With 90% financing, $50,000 could go a long way back then.
We continued to do fixer upper projects for several years and got our real estate licenses along the way. We then started getting requests from friends to help them buy real estate. So we did that too and really liked it.
We joined a small brokerage as part time Realtors, but continued to buy, sell and remodel fixer uppers.
1988 was the year Glenn became a full time Realtor, 1991 for Therese. We joined the largest firm in California and were the youngest among 55 agents in our local office.
This was the year we also did our first major remodel, converting an 1,100 square foot home into a 2,700 square foot home. After that, we continued to build homes on the side, including an eight home subdivision.
1995 we started a new real estate brokerage. We taught and managed real estate agents, while representing clients as full time Realtors.
1998 was quite a year. We never had the desire to sell the most homes, but in 1998 it happened. We sold 114 homes, tops in the Bay Area per the San Francisco Business Times.
A year later, the Associated Press gave us credit for doing the first online real estate transactions. We had created a website and an email program that streamlined the process of buying and selling homes. With the volume of home sales we were doing, we needed a way to reduce the number of face to face client meetings.
Did some spots on Channel 2’s Morning Show which were live and kind of nerve racking, but it was fun talking about real estate and the trends of the time.
2005 and ten years after opening our brokerage, we had 4 offices, 60 agents and a mortgage company. We were becoming engaged in things that took us away from our clients, so we scaled back the company. By 2009 we had reduced the number of agents in half and while offering incentives to work from home.
2019 and after more than two decades owning and operating a real estate brokerage, we joined Remax Accord. We stepped away from the day to day operation to become Realtors, without the interruptions as brokerage owners.
We are Bay Area natives, undergrads at Saint Mary’s College. We live in Danville and are fortunate to live just a few miles from our daughter, her husband and granddaughter.
As far as hobbies, we play pickleball and still like to renovate homes. Helping the homeless has been something we’ve enjoyed for years, and now the Children’s Miracle Network has become a new focus.
