John Adlam – Alain Pinel Realtors

I can not say enough about John and his business partner Carmen Lerma.
John and Carmen’s approach to helping us find a house made us feel secure and confident, and we always felt they were looking out for our best interests as first time home buyers in an extremely tight Central Marin market. We ended up being in the market for almost a year, and John and Carmen were always extremely responsive, knowledgeable about each area we were considering, and brought timely and sage advice for us to consider every step of the way.
My favorite thing about John and Carmen is they are upfront and transparent about everything. You never feel as though they are trying to sell you on something, and their cautious approach made us feel secure every step of the way. John and Carmen guided us through two tense multiple offer and counter offer situations, and helped us ultimately make decisions that led us to our dream house in an area we did not think we would be able to afford, and below asking price– all thanks to John and Carmen’s quick and steady work. They are a total dream team, bring different complimentary tools to the table, and never let anything fall through the cracks. We could not recommend their services highly enough.

We originally found John by «Gary E’s» Unilocal review. Beyond being entertaining, it was spot on. John was extremely professional and took the time to be sure that we were familiar with Marin before plunging into buying a house. He is most definitely not transaction driven. His number one goal was help us find a home that suited our specific needs. I have not worked with a real estate agent that I would recommend as highly as him. We even had a fussy baby in the car and he didn’t miss a beat.

When my wife and I lived in DC, the estate agent we used to sell the condo annoyed the crap out of us. He truly did. He accepted our listing, told us we had to paint and fix some things up before we moved (which we did), called us the day we got here to tell us he found some other issues with the place, but not to worry, he took care of them, and he’d just bill us after the house sold. He hosted one open house (well, he didn’t — he went to a conference, so his wife hosted it) and it sold in five days after he called us to confirm an offer, and told us to just flat out accept it without countering. And then we never heard from him again (which was awesome when our power of attorney was wandering around DC with no idea where he was supposed to be.)
This was my only experience with a realtor. Therefore my opinion was set. They’re lazy, greedy, and in reality do feck all but eat a fat percentage of whatever equity you’ve scraped.
Then we met John Adlam. We’ve been working with John now for a few months and if Douchebag in DC was one extreme, John’s the other. He’s knowledgable, he’s blunt, and he’s in our corner. In two instances, we’ve been willing to move forward on houses that he’s stopped us on. Rather than just taking his commission check and running, he’s convinced us to walk away from money pits, bad situations where we were just making snap decisions. He’s put up with our flip-​flopping, our indecisiveness, our flat out terror of spending ridiculous amounts of money, our pickiness, and anything else I could think of. If I were in his shoes, I’d have taken me out back and beaten me with a hose by now, but he bears it all with good grace, and good humour.
So if you’re in the market for a house in Marin, there’s two things I have to say. First, you have my deepest sympathy. Second, to make a daunting and difficult task of finding an affordable home here much easier and pleasurable, give John a call, and tell him the bald Irish guy sent ya.