I met Lucas as he was representing an open house for an incredible condo in in Bernal. It was clear this thing was going to go well over asking, and well over my budget, but still ended up having a great conversation with him.
I've been looking on and off for years, figuring there was little a buying agent could do for me more than I could do on my own with some well crafted Zillow and Redfin alerts. I'd heard of off-market listings, but every realtor I had spoken to had promised big and never delivered.
Sure enough, within a week or two of having met him, Lucas emailed me with an off-market listing in Duboce. Not the area I had been focused on, but figured i'd check it out. I'm so glad we did. Even with the rainy, dark, and miserable weather and the general clutter of an un-staged home, it was clear this could be an incredible home.
The escrow process was not without difficulties - an inept insurance salesman, an over-aggressive underwriting department of a smaller bank - but Lucas worked closely with the seller to guide this all to completion.
This review is slightly overdue but beyond warranted nonetheless. We worked with Sasha Lupercio of the SF Hotlist team and with Danielle in a more peripheral sense. It was a fantastic experience! We started searching in January and closed on a property by mid-March! considering that we were new to the SF area and market (just moved from Philadelphia August 2016) we were full of trepidation. Luckily, the process was very smooth. I would say the plus side to working with this team is that they are very very responsive and hyper-realistic about your goals and what works financially for their clients. Considering the market we never thought we would end up in a single family home in one of the most desirable neighborhoods in the city. Our purchase was unique as it was 'off-market' which was completely arranged by the SF Hotlist team and has made our dream-home come true. Escrow was a well thought out breeze. Additionally, their network of ancillary services is unparalleled. I will continue to recommend them to all of our friends and family who are actively searching for their own piece of space in this city!
We met Lucas Sorah at a beautiful condo in Bernal he was representing in January. We had only been in SF two months (moved from NYC), had never owned and thought we were a year away from being able to buy a place. After our initial conversation with Lucas however, he convinced us there was no need to wait that long. He is so easy to talk to, even for two introverts, that by the end of our first meeting we couldn't wait to start looking at places together. Mid-way through our first day of open house tours Lucas had honed in on what we were looking for, even before we did. We thought we needed to look in East Bay but he knew we'd be happiest in the city, and he showed us that it was possible to buy something we loved right here in SF. Long story short, we just moved into our first home three weeks ago, in Noe Valley (what!), after our second offer was accepted just 2 months after meeting Lucas.
Having heard stories from people we know who had looked for over a year and made dozens of offers before being successful, we feel incredibly lucky to have met Lucas when we did. There are lots of reasons why we will recommend Lucas to all our friends and family, and it boils down to a few key factors:
1) As we learned first hand, most of the business in this city/market is handled by just a handful of agents, and Lucas is one of them. With his connections and resources not only did he focus our attention on listings that were a good fit for us and where we could be competitive, he was also able to show us off-market listings that we never would have known about otherwise.
2) He's always made us feel like we were his only clients, he's been straight-forward with us, and he's managed our expectations professionally from day one. He was available to us as much as we needed, and more importantly we were a team -- the process was collaborative which is what made it so fun and rewarding. He's the reason we never got discouraged.
3) His experience, knowledge and intuition about the market is so finely-tuned that we quickly realized the best thing we could do for ourselves when making an offer was to trust his recommendation completely. Time and again his gut was spot on for what a place would receive in terms of offers and predicting the successful sale, and ultimately we witnessed first hand how he delivers on his promise: with Lucas you "win" on your third offer or sooner. If you trust him, you'll be successful.
4) With Lucas you get so much more than just an agent - you get an entire team of experts that have been closing homes together for years. We didn't know anyone in the city or know where to start with the loan process. Lucas introduced us to our mortgage broker who guided us through the confusing process and made the entire experience less stressful. He also introduced us to a roster of folks we would end up needing: our insurance agent, home-warranty agent, even our cleaner! Finally I would be remiss if I did not mention that Lucas and his team stage the most compelling open houses we saw in SF, hands-down. If we end up selling in the future there's no one else we'd consider for the sale. We've already been talking to Lucas about the work we plan to do to our new place, with future resale value in mind.
Our experience could not have been better from beginning to end, we are truly happy with our new home, and we have Lucas to thank for that.
