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Joined 02/26/2008

Mary Pope-Handy, CRS, ABR, E-Pro, SRES

Realtor,CRS, ABR, e-PRO

Luxor Real Estate Group (Los Gatos, CA)

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(877) 397-5391

See my Linked In Profile for Mary Pope-Handy profile

Married to my best friend, Jim, with two great teenagers and a black lab who can't be trusted to "watch" your food. We live in Los Gatos, California (which is a quaint town with a fun downtown area snuggled into the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains and is a suburb of San Jose - so part of Silicon Valley). We love to travel and stay in touch with our extended family. I collect ghost stories.

Professional Stuff:

  • Full time, second generation Realtor (since Feb 1993)
  • Selling homes all over Silicon Valley (aka Santa Clara County, the San Jose area) and focusing on the west valley communities of Los Gatos, Saratoga, Cambrian Park, Almaden Valley, Campbell, and Monte Sereno. Native of this area, which was once called "The Valley of Heart's Delight".
  • Who/what: Tons of experience with seniors and long distance buyers and sellers. All price ranges. Condos/townhomes/single family homes. (Not mobile homes, raw land or mountain properties.) High tech, high touch, "helping nice folks to buy and sell homes".
  • Co-author of a book, "Get The Best Deal When Selling Your Home In Silicon Valley".
  • Education junkie: CRS, ABR, e-PRO, SRES, ASP, RECS, CNHS, ACRE.
  • Blogger & web marketing specialist - multiple blogs and sites, including one on haunted real estate. Main sites and blogs are www.DelightHomes.com (aka www.PopeHandy.com), www.ValleyOfHeartsDelight.com, and www.LiveInLosGatos.com.

    • My Comments

    • I think that Michigan has

      I think that Michigan has been harder hit than anywhere else in the country - I just peeked online and it looks like unemployment there is 13.9%. It's 11.2% in CA and 11.5% in Silicon Valley specifically, and it hurts. Teens cannot find jobs. Compounding the situation, the overall economic stresses, crime is way up. People are desperate. So it's not just a loss of economic security, it's also a loss of a sense of personal safety in many areas where crime did not used to be such a large issue. But states and communities are bankrupt, and jails cannot afford to hold people and police are stretched too thinly to persue many crimes. It worsens. The recovery cannot come soon enough. Mary Pope-Handy Luxor Real Estate Group Co-Author, "Get the Best Deal When Selling Your Home in Silicon Valley" www.PopeHandy.com (site) www.ValleyOfHeartsDelight.com (site) www.LiveInLosGatos.com (blog)

    • Tisza always wins - she has

      Tisza always wins - she has amazing "winner karma". I have seen it in action twice myself so am not surprised that she won a pass to Connect! I'm happy that she won - will tweet a couple myself but have to leave the computer shortly.... Mary Pope-Handy Luxor Real Estate Group Co-Author, "Get the Best Deal When Selling Your Home in Silicon Valley" www.PopeHandy.com (site) www.LiveInLosGatos.com (blog)

    • Great advice to check the

      Great advice to check the permit status, but consumers need to understand that often these files are incomplete (and sometimes entirely missing). Sometimes the permit files are simply unreadable, too. Recently I had a nightmarish experience with the City of Monte Sereno, which "lost" part of a permit file and wanted my seller clients to pay a fortune to bring a lot of the home up to current code - to the tune of $8000 to reactivate the permit and another $8000 to $23,000 in "required" repairs. Luckily I tracked down the original builder, who gave us proof that the home was finalled and it was simply the city's filing system that was screwed up. (See http://www.realtown.com/LiveInLosGatos/blog/los-gatos-homes/monte-sereno-building-permit-nightmare.) That is the most egregious example, but many cities and counties have missing paperwork. Homeowners: always keep a copy of your permits and finals, because without them you're "guilty until proven innocent". Don't rely on someone else's filing system to prove that you did the work with all needed permits and finals. Mary Pope-Handy Luxor Real Estate Group Co-Author, "Get the Best Deal When Selling Your Home in Silicon Valley" www.PopeHandy.com (site) www.LiveInLosGatos.com (blog) www.ValleyOfHeartsDelight.com (site & blog)