Vicki Valandra – Zephyr Real Estate

I have worked with Vicki to buy two homes in San Francisco. I couldn’t recommend her more highly. There is no doubt she has her client’s best interest in mind at all times. She has been a knowledgeable, seasoned and steady guide to the wacky world of SF real estate. It’s not easy to get the home that meets all your criteria in SF, but she has helped me do that twice now. I am not sure it would have been possible without her patience, persistence and advice. She and Priya are smart and hardworking, trustworthy and enjoyable to work with — they don’t make your skin crawl like oh so many in the real estate profession. After you close, her guidance and care doesn’t end — giving me countless recommendations for handymen and contractors, even making sure I don’t miss the property tax due dates! I’m so grateful a friend introduced me to her 12 years.

I met Vicki at an Open House in my neighborhood and was so impressed with her, unfortunately, I had already committed to another agent. It ended up not working out with the other agent (BOO!) but I was ready to run right into Vicki and Priya’s arms (YAY!)
She helped me purchase my condo on a great block in Bernal Heights, within my budget, that I anticipate living in for the next few years. She was completely on-​the-​ball with communications in order for me to get the lightning-​fast close that I wanted (20 days!). She has continued to advise me on real estate matters and I am confident that I will look to Vicki if I ever choose to upgrade to a bigger place!

We have known Vicki Valandra and used her as our realtor through five SF real estate transactions. She has proven each time to be a wonderful professional and has made each transaction seamless. She is hardworking and very responsive. She most recently secured our dream/​forever home and without a doubt it was through her dedication and strategy that made this deal happen. She’s honest, trustworthy, and very smart (Stanford MBA). She handles her business like a true professional, which you don’t always see in SF. I trust her implicitly and would use her services again in a heartbeat. She has a deep understanding of SF real estate and has used that to our advantage every time. We have even had transactions where the other party wished to use her after the fact. The SF market can be a tricky place to navigate but Vicki gets it done.

Priya and Vicki helped my wife and I find our first home and they were absolutely amazing. Being first time buyers in an extremely competitive market, I don’t think we would have ended up with as great a place at as great a price if we had not worked with them.
They both have amazing backgrounds for pretty much any job (MIT, Mckinsey, Stanford GSB). Beyond credentials, they were extremely analytical and rigorous in their approach and their recommendations came from experience and insight rather than a desire to just close the deal. For example, there were multiple times where they would push us to hold on our offer price based on their market analysis when a more self-​interested agent would have let us raise the offer just to ensure the deal was done. It’s only after working with them did I realize how long term focused they are — if they help us with a great purchase, we’re probably will look to them for our next home.
It really felt like we had high powered advisors helping make sure along every step of the way, and no matter how complicated /​trivial the decision, we were making the best decision. We’re hugely appreciative of the hard work they put in and definitely plan to be working with them again in the future. In fact, Priya started out as Vicki’s client and liked working with Vicki so much in purchasing properties that she decided to quit her job and join Vicki on the real-​estate agent side. While I was surprised by that story when I first met them, having gone through a deal with them, I’m no longer surprised given how amazing our experience was with them.

Vicki and Priya helped us sell our condo in Noe Valley. They added a tremendous amount of value beyond just the normal sale process. They introduced and managed the logistics for painters, handymen, inspectors, etc. We appreciated their strategic guidance around what to touch up and how to best position the home for a sale. They treated our home with as much love as we would. Vicki and Priya went the extra mile to show our home to highly qualified individuals before the official process launched. When we received a pre-​emptive bid, they provided sound advice on how to handle the bid. Their highly strategic and thoughtful approach to dicussions with buyers sets them apart to the point where we felt very comfortable with them representing us in discussions… in fact, they did a better job than we would have ourseleves. We’re quite thankful for everything this dynamic duo did for us.

We had been looking for a home for a long time, but couldn’t decide where (Burlingame, East Bay). Then we decided to move to San Francisco and buy a home after our son was admitted into elementary school. By now, we had worked with 5 agents in prior neighborhoods and transactions/​offers, so we knew what kind of agent we were looking for.
After our son got into a school, we focused on looking for a SFH in Noe Valley. We had lined up 4 – 5 interviews with agents and by the time we got to Vicki we knew she was the right one. Not just because she went to Stanford Business School, but because she was very down to earth and a good listener and was detailed. Prior agents we had worked with were not always like this, (except Raziel Unger in Burlingame — whom we highly recommend in that city). We had also interviewed other SF agents, including some with very high Unilocal reviews, but they were very opinionated or too busy. One agent whom I knew from before and highly ranked even told me I couldn’t find a SFH ³⁄₂ with garage for under $ 2mm in Noe Valley. That agent wasn’t correct, and we were able to land a home under $ 2mm.
Vicki was very different, and reminded us of our old agent in Burlingame. Felt like someone who was very approachable, no slicked hair, or overly done makeup or cheesy marketing materials. She also happened to be friends with some of our friends in common so that also helped. Priya, her assistant, was very helpful as well.
We interviewed them on one night, decided to put an offer the next day on one home we saw. We actually won the home with our offer and Vicki and Priya helped us post sale, including setting up appointments during escrow, recommending leads for help and even driving her Mini Cooper into our garage to test the sizing out.
I would recommend working with Vicki and Priya if you are looking for an agent.

Vicki was wonderful to work with! I recently sold my condo in San Francisco and she did very well by us. I first contacted her last July as I wanted to put my home on the market and over the course of several meetings, she helped me decide best timing, and all the things I needed to do to make my place look perfect for a good sale. She is very friendly, a hard worker, and was always great about answering any email or phone calls immediately (which I really appreciated). She was also willing to discuss the pros and cons of certain house repairs or upgrades she was recommending before my place was sale ready. Very competent, patient, and professional – I highly recommend her services! And our place sold about 20% over asking, so we are super happy with the end result too.

I worked with Vicki for over a year in my search for a new home in San Francisco. I had very strict requirements, so it took us a bit of time to find the perfect place. Throughout the whole process, Vicki was incredibly patient, responsive, proactive, and competent. I really appreciated having her on my side while navigating the market. I couldn’t recommend her any more strongly.

Vicki is an amazing real estate agent to work with. Vicki and her assistant, Priya, made the entire home buying process so smooth and enjoyable for me. I am a first-​time home buyer, who has been looking to buy my own place for a little over a year. I finally closed a few weeks ago. Over the last year, she’s helped me navigate the very competitive SF housing market i.e. bidding against more than half a dozen other people, the unbeatable all cash offers, etc. I always appreciate how she is so patient in explaining every step of the process to me and is always responsive to my questions or concerns. I highly recommend her as an agent.

My wife met Vicki at an open house for an apartment a few doors from our house where she was the Listing agent.(which sold for way over asking) We liked the fact that she is so personable but also works for Zephyr. We used a Zephyr agent to buy our home (Shari Malone — now retired) and were really impressed, not just with the high level of service but the ethical way, she at least, conducted business and interacted with the selling agent (not so ethical!!). The same must be said of Vicki, who after interviewing her, left us with the feeling that we would be working with someone who understood our need for scrupulous business practices.
With her amazing stager, Robin of Robin’s nest, Vicki went around the house advising us of neutral colors we should use to best ‘show’ our property. She was very upfront about things that would be worth spending money on, such as painting our kitchen cabinets. We had thought we might need to replace our dated kitchen cabinets and were thankfully advised against doing so. She also felt we should minimise our expenditure which ended up us saving a lot of money, time and stress. Phew, thanks Vicki, because it was stressful enough as it was!
Despite what I wrote in the previous sentence, we still had a lot to do and Vicki had a great list of resources, whether it was for painters, counter top installers, floor refinishers, tax advisers or haulers (thanks Tim!!). She answered questions within an hour of writing every time (one from Times square in NYC where she was on a family vacation) and ‘held our hands’ throughout the whole sale process Our SFR in the Mission showed really beautifully and received a lot of interest, in part due to the beautiful marketing material that Vicki and her team put together, both with web site and brochure.
Our overall experience with Vicki was really pleasant and we always felt we were in the hands of a real professional who understood what it was like for us to sell our home, which we had poured so much of ourselves into. We were VERY happy with the sale price and the terms and the way Vicki conducted herself throughout the whole process. We also feel that she she is still very available to us for wise counsel, even though escrow has closed, which we really appreciate.

You should absolutely hire Vicki as your real estate agent. She’s amazing! I have not met, and cannot imagine meeting, a better real estate agent. She exceeded our expectations by a landslide.
She helped us sell our single family home for 9% above asking, but what we valued the most was her guidance, support and insight throughout the process. Here’s a few specifics that jump to mind:
1. She is true partner and trusted adviser. Our sale process had a few wrinkles. At every turn Vicki helped us frame the decision at hand, think through pros/​cons, think through next steps, etc. Whatever decision we made, she got behind it and worked hard to get us the best outcome. She views her work more as a consultant than a salesperson, and it shows.
2. She owns the process. Turns out selling your home is complicated, time consuming, confusing and annoying. Vicki wasn’t afraid to roll up her sleeves and get sh*t done. She kept meticulous track of timelines, to dos, payments, vendors, etc; none of which we wanted to think about.
3. She has an MBA from Stanford, the best business school in the country. I’m not generally impressed by degrees, but a real estate agent with a Stanford MBA is a rare breed. She was more thoughtful, rigorous, professional, creative, etc. than any real estate agent I’ve worked with. I’m a trained M&A banker, and she impressed me with her negotiation skills.
4. She’s incredibly knowledgeable on the SF market and real estate game theory in general. This is table stakes, but box checked.
5. She’s a normal human being. Personal, professional, knowledgeable, interesting, warm, friendly, etc. She the right mix of assertive, aggressive when needed, and not annoying. She’s someone you want to talk to, and is easy to trust — which is important when she’s negotiating on your behalf. I’ve dealt with a lot of real estate agents I’d rather never see again.
Hire Vicki — she’s amazing!
I’m more than happy to answer any one-​off questions for anyone considering Vicki. Feel free to ping me through Unilocal

Vicki helped my siblings and me sell our father’s house after he died. It was an unusual situation because we had a buyer already, yet it was not obvious for a while that he would obtain the financing he needed; and he did not have a realtor or attorney working on his behalf. I approached Vicki and we agreed that she would handle the sale, without most of the usual efforts such as staging, and for a much reduced commission. This could have been risky: Vicki could have sabotaged the sale we had already arranged in order to then put the house on the open market, for a much higher (three times as high) commission for herself and her company. This was my eighth real estate transaction, and in an earlier one I had discovered that the realtor I was working with was quite duplicitous, manipulating buyer and seller by telling them different things, in order to hasten the sale. With this in the back of my mind, I was particularly attentive to the ways in which Vicki came across from the start as transparent, honest, and invested in her client’s satisfaction. I came away with the following to say: Vicki earned every penny of her commission. She worked zealously to see us through the entire process; she was extremely good at communicating frequently and lucidly with me as well as the buyer, and she was proactive in making sure the buyer would be successful in getting his financing, by reminding him repeatedly of his upcoming deadlines. I have recommended her to friends in the market on the basis of her integrity and the pleasure of working with the smart, energetic, and all around pleasant person that she is, and I recommend her to you for the same reasons.

I can’t say enough positive compliments about Vicki. She represented me as a buyer in one of the toughest buyer markets ever. She stuck with me for a year until I found a place I loved and she knew would be good for me. She’s the utmost professional and she’s a good, trustworthy person. She wasn’t in it for the easy sale. She really looked out for my long term interests. All thumbs up from this buyer!!! Also she is a respected agent among her peers and sometimes that gives you the edge in this tough market.

I can not say enough fabulous things about our realtor. We met with her 3 months before we were even ready to start looking, when we weren’t even sure we could afford a house, but wanted to know more about what we could get. She gave us an hour long introduction to house buying then and got us us all set with tracking listings on line. She didn’t care that we weren’t really ready yet (hadn’t gotten a loan approval or anything like that) and had some good suggestions on how to get started and how much we would need in the bank. We didn’t start looking until August, but that didn’t seem to phase her at all. In the interim, I’d send her questions about houses I saw for sale, and send her ones that I loved so that she got an idea of our tastes.
Once we were ready, we then really got to know her. She is smart, fun, aggressive without being pushy, and super well respected among other realtors, (which it turns out is key as unbeknownst to us realtors like selling houses with realtors that are easy to work with). During the process, which was totally new to us, she explained everything thoroughly and we really felt like we could trust her not to be leading us astray. Living in the area she has a great sense for how much places are worth and what they will go for. She was wonderfully responsive during the whole thing and called us frequently with updates through the bidding and escrow process.
Another great thing about Vicki is that she didn’t let us overbid. I wanted to put more on the house, but Vicki had gotten the inside scoop on the number of expected offers on the house (5) and talked us down on how much we should put in. (How many realtors convince you to pay less!) She felt confident that with the range we were comfortable, the realtor selling the place would come back to us with our top offer if we were close. In the end, that proved really nice to know we had paid less than we would have been willing to get the house. Also all the document signing is done on line with Zephyr through a signature portal, which made the need to sign multiple documents through the process über convenient.
She was truly amazing through what could have been a very stressful process. We love our house so much and Vicki has checked in several times since then to make sure things have been going well and that we remember to pay our property taxes. :) We still regularly email her with questions and she is a great resource for all things related to home buying.

Buying a house in SF can be very stressful especially for out-​of-​towners who are adjusting to the local property environment. We were SF newbies when we first worked with Vicki and over the years worked with her on three different transactions. She was absolutely terrific every time.
She is very professional and attentive and really knows the city and the changing market. Importantly for us she was never in any way pushy or over ‘salesy’. We trusted her and always felt that she was working to get us into a place that would really feel like home. Definitely one of the one of the cooler realtors about town and highly recommended for folks seeking a family home.

I met Vicki at an Open House and was immediately drawn to her — she was clearly very knowledgeable about the San Francisco real estate market, but more importantly, she was really approachable and immediately put me at ease. My housing search took years (literally) and Vicki never put any pressure on me — she continued to send me listings I might be interested in and provided me her candid feedback on each property after her Open House tours. More than once she talked me out of submitting an offer because there was either something about the property or the price that wasn’t right.
Once I was ready to put in an offer, Vicki helped me negotiate the right price (for which I’m very grateful) and then guided me through the whole process. As a first time buyer, the process can be daunting, but Vicki made it seem really easy. She walked me through the required paperwork and we were able to work with a team of individuals that she has trusted relationships with to get through all the hoops (mortgage brokers, contractors, title companies, etc). I felt incredibly supported throughout the process.
I cannot recommend Vicki enough — she’s incredibly knowledgeable, detailed oriented, honest, hard-​working and down-​to-​earth. I am very lucky I ran into her at the Open House all those years ago.

Vicki helped us buy a Tenancy in Common (TIC) in San Francisco. The process is a little more complicated than buying a condo, but Vicki made it really easy to understand and gave us guidance on things to consider.
We interviewed a bunch of agents before deciding on Vicki. We really liked Vicki’s style. She’s professional with a lot of experience, but she’s got a friendly, low-​pressure demeanor. We really hate the super-​salesy agents that seem like they just want to get you into anything just to make their commission. Vicki listens well, so you feel like she can find places that really would be a good fit.
She’s not shy about supporting her clients. The seller of our place was a little slow on fixing a bunch of things and Vicki was on top of everything, making sure the seller actually finished. She was able to apply that gentle pressure that gets things done without getting anyone upset.
Vicki has contacted us many times after our purchase just to make sure everything has worked out well. We’ll definitely use her again when we outgrow our current place.
I recommend that any prospective buyers interview a bunch of agents, and Vicki should definitely be on your list. She’s really a San Francisco real estate expert and you’ll actually enjoy the home buying process.

We just bought our first house through Vicki & I can’t recommend her enough. We were referred to her by a friend & I’m so glad we found her. Since this was our first house, I was nervous about finding an agent & worried that we might not find someone we really trusted so we were really relieved when we met Vicki. She is so smart & on the ball and we clicked with her right away. She works hard on your behalf & is amazingly responsive. It’s rare to call & not have her pick up & if you do leave a message she always gets back to you immediately. She also gave us a lot of really valuable tips & guidance on the inspection, areas for negotiation, etc. In addition to her hard work & professionalism, Vicki is also just a pleasure to work with & be with. She’s a really cool person who I can totally see myself hanging out with & hope to keep in touch with!

Vicki Valandra was recommended to us by a friend about 3 or 4 years ago, and we are forever grateful. She helped us buy (and sell) our first home, and both experiences were absolutely fantastic. Vicki is smart (and has the credentials to prove it), extremely hard-​working, funny — and in addition to being competent & fun to work with, she really & truly puts her clients’ interests above all else.
During our purchasing process, Vicki was out there working hard for us — we toured together, and she was out seeing properties for us, recommending some, telling us to forget about others. She knew we were motivated, so she was «on» our search, but at the same time, she wasn’t the least bit pushy. Perfect.
Even years after we bought our place, Vicki continued to be there for us — she answered all of our questions promptly, guided as to when we might consider selling, helped us find contractors, handymen, painters.
Oh, and I can’t forget one of the best things about Vicki — she’s not your typical shameless, self-​promoting realtor. No cheesy postcards, no glossy photos of herself plastered all over everything, no fuss, no muss, no b.s. Which is why all of her business comes from referrals. It’s no wonder — we’ve passed her name on to everyone we know who has considered buying or selling throughout the city — call her, meet her, you won’t be disappointed!

Vicki helped me find my condo in the Mission with diligence and expertise. During our search and bid process, she was unfailingly patient, responsive, and, most importantly, authentically sweet and pleasant to work with.
Vicki lives in the Mission District and has a comprehensive understanding of the market and the properties in the surrounding areas. She’s got a great sense of humor AND is totally competent. Her negotiation skills and connections make her just the person you want on your team!
She is so sweet that she even emailed me to remind me months after buying my property that my property taxes were due!
Oh…and woman has an MBA from Stanford. Respek.