Whether a first-time, move-up, or investor, or looking for a home for your family member, Sternsmith Group can make it happen. We have simple and fun buying experiences so you can purchase your new home without all the stress. Our buyers win against multiple offers and we excel at finding off-market properties. Schedule a time to speak with us to discuss the buying process and how you can be set up for success!
The introductory meeting focuses on what you are looking for in your future home, the buying process, how the Sternsmith Group works, and how we can simplify and streamline the buying process. It’s a great opportunity for you to share everything you want in your neighborhood, home, and to answer your questions. After the initial meeting, we can confirm if we are the right match moving forward.
In the competitive Bay Area market, the pre-approval process is an important piece of setting you up for success. Being pre-approved or fully underwritten saves you valuable time by identifying how much you can afford, so you can target your home search to your chosen price point. We are happy to share our list of trusted Sternsmith lenders or work with your lender of choice.
The Grand Tour is an interactive experience where we go and see homes in your desired neighborhoods as well as expose you to neighborhoods that match your criteria. We will begin to eliminate the areas that do not align with you, so we can hyperfocus on the areas that you like best to find the home that you want to buy. By seeing homes through your eyes, it also enables us to guide you to the right homes moving forward. This is a very fun and educational experience
Now that we are hyper focused on the neighborhoods and type of home you want, we have an aggressive approach to find on and off market properties. This is where the magic happens, and the value of working with agents that focus on getting their clients access to on market, pre-market and off market homes.
Once you find the home you would like to buy, we will immediately request the disclosures. Your Sternsmith agent will walk you through the disclosures, complete a comparable analysis, and write up the purchase agreement. Enabling buyers with knowledge & minimizing surprises. Our proactive approach has set up buyers over and over again for success. We actively communicate with our clients, the lender, and the listing team to get the deal across the finish line. You are our top priority, and we thrive in negotiating the best possible price for you.
From escrow to closing to getting your keys, we are with you every step of the way to set you up for success. For many of our buyers, we assist in connecting with vendors, acquiring quotes & scheduling work for after the close of escrow. Once the purchase of your home is official and recorded with the county, we will notify you immediately of the exciting news, and coordinate the hand off of all keys to you as the new homeowner!
Gabby was very proactive with us right from the start, taking the time to really understand our needs and then showing us several listings that fit our profile. She was patient, never pushy at all and clearly has a deep knowledge of the local market. When we found our preferred property, Gabby became deeply involved with all reports, including home inspection and went out of her way to uncover some missing HOA information. We always felt that ...
We didn't know Gabby beforehand, and she was assigned to us through Zillow. Boy, did we get lucky! You will never meet a more dedicated, hard-working, and responsive agent. She was very proactive, and we never had to follow up with her because she was always one step ahead. Even though we were clueless, first-time homebuyers with a limited budget, Gabby was very patient and spent a lot of time with us explaining the process and doing handholdi...
We had a great experience with Gabby as our real estate agent! From the start, she was super responsiveness, patient with our questions and helpful with the complexities of purchasing our first house. A standout moment was her dedication when we faced a title insurance problem with the house we were interested in. She found a solution, securing the necessary coverage and enabling us to confidently submit an offer. What truly set Gabby apart wa...
We had a great experience with Gabby as our real estate agent! From the start, she was super responsiveness, patient with our questions and helpful with the complexities of purchasing our first house. A standout moment was her dedication when we faced a title insurance problem with the house we were interested in. She found a solution, securing the necessary coverage and enabling us to confidently submit an offer. What truly set Gabby apart ...
We went with Tess to help us sell our primary home in Palo Alto during a tight economy with rising mortgage rates and she delivered as our home sold within 10 days, above listing, and with multiple offers! Our house is on a busy street, we had concerns that it would take some time to sell but she exceeded our expectations and more. Tess went above and beyond with her attention to detail in preparing the house, impeccable staging and hosting op...
Tess is such a joy to work with! Tess is very client focused and detail oriented - she remembers every little detail of what we want in our dream home, after just telling her once. We love her energy and enthusiasm in our home-buying process and applaud her for astute negotiation skills and speedy execution. Tess helped us find our first home that is perfect for where are in life, and made what we anticipate as a a daunting process so much mor...
Needing to sell my Dad’s home, I noticed the house 2 doors down just sold. So I called the Realtors® listed Casey Sternsmith and Tess Salter, they just sold the house for record price and multiple offers. I talked to one of the neighbor’s across the street and they said the open house was nonstop cars of people looking at the house. Hoping for the same results I called Casey and Tess, they gave me an impressive marketing plan that included soc...
Susan was awesome to work with and extremely knowledgeable about the process. She had all the contacts we needed to make selling our house as easy as it could be. My wife and I were so happy that we engaged her services again when bought. our condo!
My wife and I came across Tess Salter at an open house and we immediately knew this was the agent we wanted representing us. Tess is well connected in the Peninsula real estate community and has a vast network that benefits buyers and sellers equally. Tess became our best friend as we navigated our search and purchase. Tess communicated often and clearly, took the time to help us understand each step and answered all our endless questions. She...
Tess was great to work with. She helped educate us on the areas, even gently guiding us to a location we hadn’t really considered, but which ended up being a perfect fit for us. As we visited homes, she always managed to point out important factors to consider, without offering too strong of an opinion, allowing us to form our own thoughts in an informed way. When it came time to buy, she helped us craft a competitive offer and used her relati...
Tess was recommended to us through a friend. From the beginning, it was clear that she has deep expertise on the market throughout the peninsula. We found her to be highly responsive as we worked together for almost a year, during the pandemic. She provided a helpful mix of open house trips and video tours that allowed us to quickly get a feel for the market. She assisted us in finding our ideal home, which was actually off-market. Tess guided...
Working with Tess exceeded our expectations of the home buying process; she's very observant, respectful, and just made the entire process light and enjoyable. On our first day of working Tess, she selected a handful of different homes within the peninsula, and gave us a tour of each neighborhood, noting what we liked and didn't like. By the second day of our home tour, she already knew the type of homes that we were drawn to, and what was imp...
Thanks to Casey, my partner and I are now first time homeowners, after we won the first offer we made this year. Casey's familiarity of the nuances of the local neighborhoods in San Mateo county helped me and my partner focus our search to areas that were particularly desirable for us. Her deep knowledge of the home-buying process, and how she held our hands throughout the offer and closing process, brought clarity, confidence, transparency an...
Tess was an absolute rockstar as our Realtor®! She was hard-working, and thorough, and displayed an exceptional level of expertise and mastery of her field. It was reassuring to have her by our side through the house-buying process. Not only did I know for certain that she would dot every I and cross every T, I was also put at ease by her positive and optimistic demeanor. Without Tess we never would have landed in our current home, which is no...
Casey was amazing. We found a house we liked on Zillow months before we were planning to buy and emailed Casey, who immediately told us that offers were due less than 18 hours later, worked with the listing agent to get us a tour the next morning, and guided us to make the right offer to secure the house. Then, she went above and beyond during the closing process to make sure everything went smoothly and that we had zero regrets about our purc...
Casey is professional, experienced, and has a great team. She and her staging team/contractors transformed our place and sold it very quickly despite the current macro and interest rate situation. She was also able to negotiate a great price for us. I highly recommend her as your go to for any real estate matters.
Worked with Tess and Casey to buy and sell our homes. They are true professionals. They understand the local market and really know how to set your home up for success - the staging, advertising, photography, videography, and open events - they organize it all. Initially, i wasn't a fan of staging but once I saw the results, I was blown away. Our purchase was complex owing to some small issues with the home - Tess went out of her way to come u...
Highly recommend. Tess is a phenomenal Realtor® and such a pleasure to work with. We first met with Tess to discuss what we wanted and within less than a month, she had helped us find exactly what we were looking for. We wrote 1 offer and thanks to Tess and her team, we closed earlier than expected. What really makes Tess special is how much she truly cares about her clients. She took the time to help us understand each step of the process, wa...
Tess was fantastic throughout the process. We're first-time home owners and she was patient and helpful the entire way. She answered our many questions and provided great local knowledge and guidance. Perhaps most importantly, she leveraged her relationships to put us in the most competitive position possible. Our offer was accepted the day before the house was supposed to go on market because Tess knew the selling agent well. We would highly ...
We contacted Tess upon friends' referral. On the day we met, we knew we would be working with her and our search for a Realtor® was over. We clicked instantly. Her warm and honest attitude along with her professional approach immediately creates an environment full of trust and honesty. During our search she was very proactive. She quickly got in touch with other agents, piled the information and shared with us adding her personal feedback in...
Tess is a true gem! She represented us as both a buyer agent and seller agent (we bought in 2017 and sold in 2022). She is an amazing person and truly on your side! She is thorough and knowledgeable and client-centric. Tess really made the selling process so seamless and took charge. She takes care of her clients. We also recommended her to friends who had her represent them in the buying and selling process and they share the same view. Tess ...
We highly recommend Tess and her team. With a tight timeline to sell our home, she nailed every aspect from prepping the house, scheduling her best stager, and marketing our home to her vast network internally and via social. With her expertise, we set a record comp for our neighborhood! She is extremely organized, responsive and knowledgeable. We appreciated her input/feedback and calm demeanor throughout what can be a stressful process. As a...
She was very pleasant and understood what we were looking for in a house to buy. She was always available even late at night to answer our questions. She looked out for us all the time. We have had a wonderful experience with our house buying with Leila and have no hesitation recommending her to anyone looking for an honest, reliable, hardworking Realtor®.
I cannot recommend Casey enough. She is professional, proactive, knowledgeable, responsive, and honest. She helped my wife and I purchase our new home and she really listened to us from the get-go. After a phone call with her, she was able to find homes exactly like what we were looking for. Buying a home is stressful, but she made it fun and enjoyable. Thank you, Casey!
We first met Tess at a beautifully staged open house in San Carlos while we were browsing listings we found online. From the moment we met her, she was warm, and friendly and it was easy to chat with her about the home she was showing as well as what we were looking for. We have been through the home purchasing process before with another reputable agent, and while this particular house wasn't what we were looking for, we had a really great fe...
Tess is incredible at what she does and made our first home-buying experience so enjoyable! We met Tess early on in our search and appreciated her knowledge of the market, patience with walking us through each step of the process, and expertise in helping us smoothly secure an off-market home. Once our bid was accepted, Tess had a phenomenal network of all-star professionals to guide us through escrow, mortgage loans, etc. It’s so clear from e...
Casey's encyclopedic knowledge of the market and meticulous attention to detail help us find our dream home in a few short months after years of searching. Definitely, the best Realtor® in the area and highly recommended.
Casey did an amazing job helping us sell our first home. She was professional, knowledgeable and efficient, making the entire home-selling process pain-free and stress-free for us. All we had to do was move out of our place and Casey took care of the rest (cleaning, staging, marketing, hosting multiple open houses, getting us the best offers, etc.). Overall a really fantastic experience!
Tess and her Team are the best! Cool-headed, consummate professionals with market knowledge that is second to none. Their results exceeded our expectations - and kept our stress level to a minimum by covering all the key details. Don't hesitate to work with the Sternsmith Group - you will not be disappointed!
My husband and I were extremely happy with the service and expertise that Tess Salter and her sister, Casey Sternsmith, provided. They were always available for questions, incredibly pleasant to work with and exceeded our expectations with the sale of our house. Tess and Casey took care of all inspections and prep, never pushed us to do something we didn't want to do and kept us in the loop along the selling process. We highly recommend Tess S...
Casey and Tess helped us sold our home at Bay Meadows at record time, with multiple offers & a good final selling price. As you'd expect with any home sale, they were a couple of complications which they smoothed out for us. We seem to have put the house on the market at the worst time - one weekend before Thanksgiving. Despite the tight schedule, they helped us prepped for the home showings, gave us expert advises, and we managed to got sev...
We've known Tess for a few years as we have thought about selling our home. As we hired Tess for the listing, everything went so smoothly and just had an overall fantastic experience. Really was a full, white-glove service, where she helped us move out, get things fixed, got the listing up and running in a good timeframe, and advised us as offers came in. Simply a 5-star experience, and we would highly recommend it. We were happy with the outc...
Casey was such a great resource and help when I was purchasing my first home. She knew the area extremely well, and understood what I was looking for extremely quickly. She gave me great advice about what to be aware of in each neighborhood I looked at. Every recommendation I toured had aspects of what I was looking for, and it was clear that Casey had a strong sense of what I would be interested in and what would be a waste of time. In addi...
We worked with Casey at the Sternsmith Group because our friend had a great experience working with Casey while buying a home during the pandemic. We were glad we followed his advice because we also had a great experience working with Casey! Her expertise and long professional experience in the Peninsula market helped make finding our first home substantially less stressful. Casey helped us get early looks at properties about to hit the marke...
Casey Sternsmith is simply the best! Prior to our first meeting with her, Casey did her homework. She knew our market, knew what homes had recently sold, and showed us recent sales for comparable homes. This helped us to quickly determine a listing price we were comfortable with. After touring our home, Casey gave us suggestions for improving the “marketability” of our home and explained how she would use both social media and other more tradi...
Casey Sternsmith has been an incredible Realtor® who has helped us to close on our dream home. From setting up the initial viewings to understand what we were looking for, walking us through our first offer, taking us through escrow and even organizing tradesmen for minor tasks once we had purchased the property Casey was intuitive, responsive, and professional. The entire Sternsmith team are also great; both Tess and Gabby helped us through t...
When we recently decided to sell our San Mateo home of 31 years, we selected Casey as our Realtor®. At our initial meeting she was well prepared and shared with us her impressive list of home sales, knowledge of the local market and professional marketing strategy. Our home needed some updating and Casey shared her extensive network of contractors who could complete the needed work to list our home in time to take advantage of the prime home-b...
Tess Salter and Casey Sternsmith are awesome real estate agents. They are professional, truthful, honest and friendly. They are very knowledgeable on the dynamic real estate market and will give you talk straight. They work tirelessly to complete the tasks at hand and meet all deadlines, smoothly as clockwork. They have a large network of contractors at their call who do great work at very competitive prices. We were 200 miles away while Tess ...
Tess is very resourceful and knows literally everybody in the area! She is not afraid of telling the client what is realistic and what is not. We were able to focus on what is most important and were able to move very quickly once we found our ideal house. I like her cheerful but very straightforward manner:) It was pleasant to work with her!
We recommend that you contact Tess Salter if you’re looking to purchase or sell your home. We've just completed working with Tess on the purchase of our new home and, to put it succinctly, – she exceeded our expectations! Tess is a great listener and immediately understood what we were looking for in a home. She locked on to our requirements! Tess deftly guided us throughout the entire process. She's on top of the market and is very responsi...
Casey is top notch in terms of how she reads the market and how she executes. Highly recommend Casey and her team.
I had to purchase a new home very quickly in the Bay Area while I was on the East Coast. Casey helped me find several options that checked all my boxes. She helped keep me calm and optimistic in my very stressful search. She went to see homes on my behalf and sent me her personal walkthrough videos I found a home my kids and I love! It's perfect for us and we are extremely happy. Casey made the process very easy. She even proactively gathere...
We were introduced to Tess and Casey at the Sternsmith Group when we were just in the beginning steps of looking for a home but found that again and again, they were the listing agents for open houses in the Bay Meadows area of San Mateo which we loved. When we were finally ready to get serious, they were the first professionals we reached out to and they did not let us down. They added value at every step of the process: deeply understanding ...
A friend of ours recommended Tess & Casey to us and we found them to be very friendly & professional. Tess brought her people in to do some needed changes to our house, Their knowledge of the market is extensive and their suggestions and advice we’re right on point. They were very accessible and responsive, returning our calls and answering any questions that we had in a timely manner. We would highly recommend Tess & Casey to anyone selling a...
Casey is amazing! We find her because she is the NO 1 agent in San Mateo, and the data does tell the truth. She managed to do our renovation within 30 days with a totally brand new kitchen, carpet & floors, and lots of other upgrades in the bathrooms. She finds budget yet high-quality contractors. Our renovation cost is well spent. With her extensive tasty staging, our place is eye-catching. We expect to sell our place in a few weeks as our ne...
Casey was fantastic in helping us navigating our first home purchase. We really had no idea what to expect, especially in the insane Bay Area housing market. After meeting Casey at an open house, she took us on a grand tour of San Mateo and surrounding communities, showing us the different neighborhoods and explaining the pros and cons of each. She helped us determine our must haves and narrow down what we really wanted. With that in hand, we ...
We worked with Tess for over a year to find our home and she was a delight to work with. She paid attention to the characteristics of our dream home and time and time again, had us looking at homes fitting our criteria. She was really attentive to our war stories from visiting numerous open houses and incorporating our feedback into future neighborhoods and homes to consider. For our third offer, Tess really went to bat for us in the back-and-...
Premier agents! We began the search for our home during the pandemic when nothing felt certain in the housing market. Casey and Tess gave us the hope we needed with their encouraging attitudes and sincerest advice. This duo is proactive, quick, and well-versed in the housing market even in the most unpredictable times. We never felt like it was just another sale for them and rather truly felt their investment in finding a home for our family. ...
Susan was exactly the buyer’s agent we needed to help turn our search into a success. Within a month of working with her, she alerted us to an off-market opportunity, which gave us our first real shot at becoming homeowners. And when we discovered that the opportunity was going to be more work than we thought we could take on, she never pressured us to close. Not once. Just the opposite, she gave us facts, provided us with options, and graciou...
If I could give Casey 10 stars, I would. She and her team were as helpful, smart, friendly, and efficient as anyone could ask for. Casey gave us great advice about preparing our house for the market. After the house went on the market, she worked tirelessly to show it. After 5 days, we had our choice of 13 great offers. Casey made a potentially stressful experience easy and totally stress-free. I will recommend her to everyone!
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