Nancy Carlson

We found Nancy on Unilocal with a 5 star review and after working with her would honestly love to give her 10 stars!!! She is a hard working perfectionist who is very methodical and has all the right contacts to get you going be it the loan or staging your house. She helped us with both buying and selling and throughout this stressful process she was optimistic, ready with facts and helped us get through it smoothly! We couldn’t be happier and thankful.

Buying a house, especially in a hyper competitive market like Los Altos, can be daunting. Nancy made it delightful! She is extremely responsive and coordinated all of the various players in the process. The level of service she provides is unbelievable. She attended meetings with the bank and the title company, met service providers at the property and put together a calendar of milestones, including when to start utilities and submit a change of address. She is extremely knowledgeable about the local market and knows how to structure a competitive offer. She provided timely and accurate updates about the process and what to expect. I am thrilled to have purchased the perfect house and had such a great experience in the process!

Nancy helped me sell a home after a family member passed away suddenly. The property was not in her usual territory, but she did extensive research to make sure she was well-​versed and that we were listed competitively with comps in the neighborhood. She was in constant contact via email and by phone and was never anything but supportive of our family and our decisions during a very difficult time. When it came time to hold open houses, she attended each one herself — as I have learned, many agents will send an assistant in their place. She took notes of each potential buyer and was familiar with each buyer and agent when it came time to discuss each offer. At the end of the day, Nancy was able to help get my family 7 solid, but unique offers on our home within a week and a half. She laid them out clearly and explained the pros/​cons of each, which made our decision an easy one. Her knowledge, professionalism, and commitment to her clients ultimately made the sale a very smooth transaction, which in my eyes is invaluable. Nancy Carlson will be the first person I call when I decide to sell or purchase another home!

We had Nancy as a buyers agent. She helped us to buy a house in Woodside CA and she was the most amazing agent we’ve ever worked with.
I don’t know how she does it. We felt like we were her only clients. She is a super agent. I would recommend her to my family, my friends and anyone I care.
Again thank you, Nancy.

Nancy just helped us buy our first home, and we couldn’t be happier with the experience. Nancy is the definition of a true professional. She is hard working, thorough, and organized. She shared her expert knowledge and demonstrated great attention to detail during walkthrough of homes and while going through paperwork (there was A LOT). Her communication is simply stellar and she’s an absolute joy to work with. We would HIGHLY recommend Nancy to our friends and family!
Nancy helped us in every aspect of the home purchase, starting with finding the right house, getting our offer selected, financing, and closing. Nancy was extremely accommodating to our busy schedules, viewing houses with us in the evenings and on the weekends. She always promptly and clearly replied to email messages, phone calls, and texts. She made us feel like we were her most important clients.
In this seller’s market, it is extremely difficult to get an offer accepted. Not only must the price be competitive, but the buyer’s agent also plays a huge role. Nancy was able to talk with the seller’s agent and figure out exactly what we needed to do to make a competitive offer on the house. Thanks to her hard work, the sellers chose to work with us (out of 10 offers!) even though our offer wasn’t the highest.
When an issue came up with our lender due to circumstances outside of our control, Nancy was right there supporting us to make everything work out. She put together contingency plans just in case we needed them without us having to ask. We felt that she genuinely cared about us, listened to what we wanted, and went above and beyond to do everything with our best interests at heart.
Even after the sale had closed she continued to help us get bids on various jobs that we had decided to do on the house before we move in. She arranged for contractor appointments, and even offered to be onsite to check in on the work in progress.
Nancy exceeded our expectations on all accounts. We would definitely use her again in the future and will be sending all of our family and friends to her awesome service in the meantime.

Couple of months ago we decided to look for a house «with a view» in the bay area. We were flexible in terms of the location as long as it was within a 30-​mile radius of Los Altos, where we currently lived. We had a great house already and were not in a hurry to move. We needed a realtor that could help us look across the bay area and was patient enough to work with us until we found one that met our needs. We found Nancy Carlson through Unilocal and we are so happy that we did. When we talked to her, we found that she knew the bay area well; she has excellent knowledge of the dynamics of the local market and has great connections to help get the deals done. Two months later, we are now proud owners of a great house with a view that exceeded all our expectations. We can honestly say that we would not have found this house if Nancy were not our realtor.
Nancy first spent the time to understand our needs and criteria well. She took us to a few houses to get a better feel for our likes and dislikes. Once she had a good feel for our taste, she started sending us links to potential candidate houses for us to review on the Web and if we were interested she would take us to see it. As we went thru this process, we were more and more impressed with Nancy and we would highly recommend her to anyone who is seriously interested in buying/​selling a house.
1. Nancy is an extremely hard worker. It is not unusual to find her working on line or sometimes in her office, late at night. Even with a very active local real estate market, she was always there for us, very proactive and responsive to all our needs. We could text or email her at any time and she would respond to us right away.
2. Nancy’s husband, Steve Carlson is also a licensed realtor. He sometimes accompanied us to see the houses. He has great knowledge of construction and was very useful and candid in pointing out potential issues with a house that escaped our untrained eye. We were glad that we got two for one, when we hired Nancy
3. Nancy is very detailed oriented. She would make copious notes as we looked at houses and would later have a detailed analysis of the plusses and minuses. Her attention to detail paid dividends when we finally found the house we wanted to buy. The paperwork she put together was thorough and complete and we breezed through the process without any issues.
4. Nancy has great connections with bankers and inspectors. She brought in her own experts to make double sure the house was structurally sound even if the seller had already done some of the inspections. Her inspectors were highly competent and very thorough. We also used the mortgage agent that she recommended. She was exceptional and our loan approval went without a hitch even though there were some complications in our application.
With Nancy, we always felt like she had our best interest at heart and was not pushing us to quickly get a deal done. In fact, she talked us out of two deals where we were inclined to make an offer. She and Steve did not feel like we were getting our money’s worth and counseled us to wait for something better. Looking back, that was indeed the right call. We ended up buying a house that is much, much better than the ones that we passed on.
In the end, we bought a house of our dreams paying less than the asking price. That is unheard of these days in an extremely hot market, where multiple offers are the norm. We were able to accomplish that only because we were working with Nancy and her team. They are by far the #1 team in this market in our opinion and we highly recommend them to anyone who is interested in buying/​selling a house.

Nancy has been, in one word, amazing. We met her at a showing and then interviewed her and one other agent to see if it’d be a good fit to help us buy. We are thrilled we decided on Nancy as we landed the right home on the right timeline. She taught us a lot about choosing a house (what to look for and how to interpret home inspections and how to prepare ourselves to make strong offers) and helped us work through the pains of purchasing in this market, and consoled us through the ups and downs. We found and won the bid on the right home for our family and that’s entirely a credit to Nancy and her team. She made everything as easy as she could for us and even past closing she has been amazing to help us coordinate repairs, contractors, and to help us get the new house in shape and move-​in ready on a tight timeline. We second all the wonderful things other Unilocal reviewers have said about her — its all spot on.

We worked with Nancy on the purchase of our new home and the sale of our former home (after we found her on Unilocal). She did a tremendous job on both houses. She provided thoughtful guidance, good market knowledge, and an incredible level of service (e.g., helping to maintain our prior house during the sale process). Whenever a snag in the process occurred, Nancy handled it calmly and proactively. We would HIGHLY recommend Nancy for anyone in the market to buy and/​or sell a home.

My wife and I found Nancy on Unilocal and engaged her in the Spring of 2014 to help us with our search for a new home in Los Altos, where Nancy is an area specialist. Nancy was very helpful in providing us insights about the different neighborhoods, keeping us apprised of market trends, and sharing her wisdom and experience about the industry and different strategies for making successful offers and winning in a competitive market. She is also very well connected and has deep ties to the Los Altos community. Her level of personal service and responsiveness was very impressive — she would often email us late into the night and respond quickly to our requests. And as other reviewers have said, Nancy has a real knack for finding «value» homes that might need some work (and thus are more reasonably priced) but have a lot of potential.
When we found a house that we wanted to bid on, Nancy walked us through the offer process, patiently answered all of our questions (whether about financing, inspections, multiple offers, contingencies, contractors, etc.) and made sure we understood what we were getting ourselves into as well as the risks involved. She was a strong advocate for us and made our offer stand out among all the others. We won our house in large part because of her efforts. Nancy is one of the best real estate agents out there, and we highly recommend her. She is thoughtful, ethical, extremely responsive, and goes out of her way for her clients. We felt fortunate to have Nancy in our corner in this competitive Bay Area real estate market, and her partner, Steve, who was super helpful as well.

Just about a month ago, I was reading through these reviews, wondering if I could really trust my life’s most important investment decision to someone I’d «only» found through Unilocal.
In our first meeting, Nancy wiped out any skepticism. She displayed a deep knowledge about the local market. She is pretty «handy», and did some very useful «mini home-​inspections» with us, alerting us to potential red flags on a house. Nancy is tech-​savvy (relatively rare amongst real estate agents, yes, even in 2014): she is at home with text messages, DropBox and digitally signed documents. More importantly, she thinks and moves at the speed of this market.
The first offer Nancy wrote for us was accepted. The seller told me yesterday that Nancy was one of the reasons they accepted our offer. Nancy presented our offer with passion. She then handled the negotiations with the seller with a cool head, grace and confidence.
I don’t want this review to descend into hyperbole. There’s no such thing as the «best real estate agent,» only good fits. On the buyer side, the kind that would be a good fit for her would be someone who has watched the market for a while, has a strong, realistic understanding of what they can afford, and is able to decide quickly, once the right opportunity presents itself. To use a soccer analogy, you use Nancy as a striker, not as a mid-​fielder.
A real estate transaction has so many moving parts, and many of those parts are fallible human beings, who make mistakes, or are just very busy. There were many moments when I got anxious. Nancy kept the ship «steady as she goes», co-​ordinating with everyone: nice where possible, tough when needed, but always with our interests in mind.
My wife and I were sitting in the backyard of our new house yesterday. We were having a friendly argument over whether I deserved any credit for the house. After all, my wife was the one who decided on our budget, selected the location, first spotted the house on redfin, and said no to all the other houses.
«Yes», I said, «But I found Nancy.» Goal!

Nancy helped me to sell my townhome in Campbell. She is the best agent I ever worked with. She went out of her way to help to put my home on the market, minimized my stress. She is personable, very knowledgeable, responsive
I worked with couple of agents before but I never met anyone like her.
She is not afraid to work hard, sold the home in two weeks.
I highly recommend her. You will be very happy that you choose her.

My husband and I just bought our dream house thanks to Nancy! We have been looking for over a year and tried to put an offer several times and got rejected. It was devastating. This time around was completely different. I have to say it wasn’t easy, our house had lots of offers but with Nancy’s magic, we were selected out of a bunch of people. I also want to mention that Nancy is great to work with. She is VERY patient. She spent hours going through all the disclosure documents to make sure we understood all the terms and conditions. She always has time to answer questions and believe me, we had a lot. She is also very sweet. We really enjoyed working with her!

My husband and I moved to Santa Clara County from Austin and my Texas realtor, Rogene, found Nancy on Unilocal and recommended her to me. I am so glad she did because Nancy is friendly, informative and helpful in all aspects of real estate, which is just crazy competitive in this part of California. We wrote a couple offers together and the third one was the charm because the listing agent had more faith in Nancy and us. We were also able to renegotiate after inspections and end up with a final price below list, which is a rare and happy thing.

«You’re my only client,» (wink wink)
jokes Nancy, but it really is no joke. You really do feel like you’re her only client. This is what really sets Nancy apart from the rest.
I heard about Nancy from a friend who raved about her after Nancy helped my friend to buy a home in Los Altos. She found her on Unilocal.
Nancy helped us to buy and sell a home, but this is an understatement.
Nancy understands the market. She knows what will go above ask. More importantly, she knows how to find the diamond in the rough. She helped us to find an «affordable» house in Mountain View. One that we never would have looked at had she not highlighted it to us. The catch? It was a fixer-​upper. Of course, the silver lining is that we not only get to make this house our home, truly matching it to our aesthetics and needs. We did a lot of fixing, but with Nancy, this was not as daunting.
Here’s why:
–She arranged for the roofers
–She arranged for the hardwood floors to be repaired and refinished
–She arranged for popcorn ceiling removal
–She arranged for significant pest work, including fumigation and a letter to neighbors of upcoming fumigation (i.e. keep pets and children safe)
–She arranged for tile work
–She arranged for interior/​exterior painting.
–She got multiple bids for the jobs. When we could not be there, «No problem. I’ll meet with them!»
–She did the scheduling. This work got done in less than a month.
This is besides coming to our house after hours to help us make an offer on a home. She is very thorough, but also knows how to summarize the paperwork into digestible bits. Ultimately, due to special efforts that Nancy made, our offer was accepted, despite a competing all-​cash bid.
Then we had to sell our house. While it would have been easier to sell our house while not living in it, Nancy respected our choice. I did not relish the thought of decluttering/​packing, so Nancy came by with boxes and tape, even offering to help pack! We managed to stage/​sell our house while living in it with two young children, no small feat. We ended up having multiple bids to choose from. Still, Nancy, did not rest, she made sure to follow-​up on potentially loose threads, including helping the buyers to secure a different loan that allowed us to close escrow in time.
She is persistent, but in an ever friendly, way. She gets the job done. And she’s modest. She is a top 10 Intero agent. And she does this without a huge crew.
Even now, several months after the buying and selling has finished, she still checks on us and asks if there is anything that she can help with, as we have further renovations planned for the distant future.
I could gush on and on about her, but don’t want to reveal all her trade secrets. ;-)
My spouse says, «Nancy deserves an A++.» I agree. I can’t say enough about Nancy and recommend her without reservation.
Nancy is in a class of her own.

I recommend Nancy for so many reasons:
— she is extremely knowledgeable about the areas we were interested in — we looked into many cities, including Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, San Jose, Campbell, Milpitas, and Fremont. Nancy analyzed in detail the pros and cons of each place we checked out.
— she helped us to figure out what we really wanted and what would be the right decision — we were quite lost in the very beginning. Nancy took all our criteria into consideration and guided us to make our own decision.
— she cares about her client — Nancy never makes us feel like a typical sales person. She always gave us genuine advice. With such advice, we were able to avoid making decisions we would end up regretting. In addition, Nancy still checks in with us from time to time after we closed our dream home in November 2013 and makes sure we know she’s always there if we need her service.
— she is very organized and capable, which makes our home buying process smooth and so much less stressful.
I will for sure have Nancy as my real estate agent again in the future!

Thanks to Nancy my husband and I closed on our dream house in January 2014!
My husband found Nancy thanks to all the great Unilocal reviews (thank you fellow Unilocalers!) and she exceeded all of our expectations. You will immediately notice she is experienced, organized, available, patient, has proven strategies to maximize the appeal of your offers and is very personable. Nancy is also very knowledgeable about the characteristics of each city /​neighborhood (we looked in San Jose, Campbell, Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Palo Alto & Menlo Park) and keeps up with market trends.
My husband and I both moved to the Bay Area several years ago for work and we saved for what seemed like a very long time to buy our first home. We were just pregnant with our first child so we wanted a home large enough to grow into in an area that has good schools and a sense of community. After hearing about both positive and negative experiences from friends with realtors we knew we wanted a someone who had our best interest in mind. Nancy takes a personal interest in each client and works to make sure you really find the property that suits you (even if you didn’t know what that is starting out). To many, Nancy will become more than just your realtor.
As first time home buyers we appreciated Nancy walking us through every tedious detail (my husband is an engineer and likes details) and she answered all our questions. When walking through houses she pointed out things like the quality of material used in the construction, obvious code violations, zero lot lines, the quality of neighbor’s houses /​yards, and tree roots that could damage a home’s foundation in the future. We quickly learned more than we ever expected and on the occasion we ventured to open houses alone we felt much more confident we could gauge if it was a home worth pursuing.
If you are looking for a «value» home where you expect to do some work in exchange for a better deal then Nancy is a pro at identifying potential. She even has a list of contractors she recommends (take them or leave them) to assist with any renovations after you purchase your home. After winning the bid on our house we had «contractor day» where we had electricians, plumbers, painters, window, carpet guys, tile guys, and HVAC all come out to do various inspections and give quotes for work. Nancy took a day out of her schedule to be at the house and greet each person, explain the work needed, and then helped summarize everything for us.
We can’t say enough good things about Nancy and have already recommended her to a friend who is now also a home owner.

Buying a home is already so stressful. Nancy was key in making my experience as stress-​free as possible. She listened to all of my needs, responded quickly to all of my issues and questions, and negotiated the deal to my satisfaction. One key thing that Nancy does better than all others is that she is realistic and honest with you; you will never feel like she’s a salesperson. Even months after I closed on my home, she still keeps in contact to make sure I’m happy. And I know you will appreciate this as well. Highly recommended!

She was a, amazing to work with. She helped us every step of the way. Really went above and beyond. Would highly recommend her.

I have worked with Nancy several times, and I am very impressed by as a realtor for her thorough attention to detail, professional manner, and just plain old hard work.
Today, as we performed one of our inspection services for her mutual client, she was watering her clients plants, and cleaning their pool while she waited for us to finish our work. She shows up early and leaves after everyone else is done.
We don’t see much of that type of thoughtfulness in our normal work situations with clients, but with Nancy, it is normal for her to outdo herself continuously.
We give her a 10 out of 10!
Mark G.

Nancy was our realtor when we purchased our home last year, and she was simply awesome across the board.
She goes all out to get the right home for you. She’s a great listener for a start, but sometimes we don’t even know what’s right for us, so she will show us plenty of choices, gauge our reactions, and help us better understand what we’re looking for in a home. We learnt a lot from visiting properties with her, thanks to her experience and attention to detail.
Making a successful offer on a home in this area is no cakewalk. I definitely valued Nancy’s data-​driven approach to pricing, which gave us more confidence when deciding whether to make an offer and how much to offer.
One other thing that stood out was her dedication to her clients. When it came time to make an offer, Nancy drove 45 minutes out to our place to go over the offer in detail and in person on a Sunday night. I don’t expect that level of effort, but it’s greatly appreciated.
There were a couple of homes we almost made an offer on, one unsuccessful offer, and one which was accepted. We are thankful we made decisions we were comfortable with throughout the process, and we ended up with a great home, thanks to Nancy.