Some recent feedback from some much loved clients/friends…..
Allen Yip – We did 2 refinances with Joseph in the past and he has been great. Very knowledgeable, good communication, and a pleasure to work with. I would highly recommend him to anyone.
Brian Gerke – We encountered some big bumps (boulders, really) in our path from bidding to closing last fall (no fault of ours or Joseph’s). I’m pretty sure the purchase of our home would have fallen through completely without Joseph’s expertise, diligence, and perseverance. Since we closed, he’s been by a few times to check in on us and help us figure out the next steps in home ownership. I can’t say enough good things.
Daniel Civello – Feedback on Joseph Mendes….He closed our refinance in January, 2013….It was amazingly painless.
Ronald Rel – Joseph listed my Pleasanton home for sale in the spring of 2012. He expertly managed the listing process from start to finish. When it looked like the bottom was dropping out when the original buyer backed out, Joseph quickly found a second buyer to save the day. If you are looking for a highly skilled real estate agent to help you buy or sale a home then Joseph is your man!
Robert Stewart – 10+ for Joseph. He managed a tricky condo refi in Healdsburg for us that involved an incompetent property management firm used by our condo association. Plus I referred him to a friend and Joseph did a stellar job on a house refi for him
David Cheung’s full letter of recommendation……
Team Oakland,
As a couple of you might remember, my family and I have been hunting for a house for a while. In fact, it started back in 2011, soon after we had our daughter. We knew we needed a bigger house not only because we had a kid, but also because my mother was going to move down and live with us (she still is). In 2011, we worked with a different realtor that we knew from another cycling club, but after looking through the inventory for about a year, we were dissatisfied with the selection. Back then, there just wasn’t that much attractive inventory.
Today, houses are a lot more attractive, but the inventory is still low, driving prices up.
After a 6-month break, we restarted our hunt, this time with Joseph Mendes. I have to say that the experience has been night and day in difference between our last realtor. Joseph knew the neighborhood (we were looking in Castro Valley and the vicinity). He worked hard to find out the history of any of the properties we were interested in (not just the ones we put bids in), and he was very responsive, easy to work with, even in the harder times. We only made 4 offers in the time we were looking (a bit over a year), but we must have looked at more than 30 properties over the course of 2 years. In every walk through, he offered his expert advice about the outlook of the property as related to costs to remodel, maintenance, etc. This helped a lot, because we are a little newbish when it comes to single family homes (we own a condo, where all our maintenance is taken care of for us).
The housing market is a very unforgiving, very rigorous venture. The competition is fierce. There’s no Cat 5 here; you’re thrown into the 1/2/3 race regardless of your background. Having Joseph there for us was like having a teammate that was 2 categories above us, sacrificing himself so that we could take the win (I know that doesn’t sound right, but it certainly felt that way). We lost many bids because we could not meet competing offers that in the 6 months we were bidding, prices came up substantially. I think our first bid was for $410k, and we ended up buying a property for $550k, our highest bid ever being $560k (which we lost against a $600k+ offer). Every time we bid, Joseph worked with the sellers and their listing agents, procuring a relationship, which worked for us at the end. Like every endeavor, buying a house takes perseverance and willpower, and lots of good credit.
When we finally found a house and won the bidding offer, Joseph is also a loan officer, so that made it super easy to transition from finding to buying. Even though we encountered road bumps in the loan process (very BIG bumps, BTW), Joseph never let up on the gas and was always on top of the business at hand. In fact, as I write this, he’s working with a coworker of mine to obtain a refinance of his house in CV. So far, Joseph is “the man,” and I agree. From winning the offer to close of escrow took about 3 weeks. Joseph worked with the sellers and made sure that they were ok with us extending our closing date (we had agreed on 2 weeks beforehand) because of income issues with our loan. After some frustrating days, we came out ahead and closed within a reasonable amount of time. In fact, the sellers were thankful that we were so communicative, and that they needed the extra time to move out anyway. I’ve worked with loan officers before, but they’ve never been this easy to work with. He really went above and beyond what we were expecting him to do; for example, he even showed up for the signing of the escrow papers…that happens very seldom, according to the notary, perhaps 2-3 times in 30 signings!
If I had to describe Joseph in as few words as possible, I’d say he’s: responsive, professional, dedicated, knowledgeable, personable. These are things I look for in every business relationship.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
Thanks for reading.
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David Cheung, CFI
510.394…….
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