About 15 months ago, my wife Amanda and I worked with Nancy and her husband Steve and in less than 8 weeks, we bought our dream home in Los Altos, at a very fair price.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving and both of us thought of Nancy and Steve as people we both were very grateful of. So although it was 15 months ago and Amanda already wrote a review, I'd like to leave my own review now. I'd especially like to offer advice to her clients as to how to best leverage Nancy's skills and experiences.

If I must say Nancy's one unique strength that differentiates her from the many other excellent realtors we know, I'd say it's Nancy's ability to pick a good home and a RIGHT HOME for the home buyers.

If you really are going to be living in the house you're buying, then I'd very strongly recommend working with Nancy. Because 15 months later, we just love this home more and more. I don't think we'd ever want to sell it.

But looking back, it was a very risky move for my wife and myself, because we'd never lived in the bay area before; actually, we'd never lived in the US before.

There are just too many issues to look out for; many of these may end up causing frustrating regret. I've seen this happen repeatedly amongst my closest friends and even a very close family member.

Great home, awesome location, fair price. But just not the right home and after much frustration, they must go through the pains of selling, moving, and buying again.

At the time, we needed to buy a home asap, and so we hammered Nancy with frequent home visits, usually as soon as a home was listed and way before the open house.

Nancy and Steve were very generous with their time, and looking back, in those cases where we felt it was a right home for us and Nancy had concerns -- she was absolutely right and we now feel very fortunate to have had trusted her judgment.

Looking back, some big-name realtors we interviewed and almost ended up working with, felt like deal makers, or investors, or even opportunists. I'm sure they're good at what they do, and if you are buying for investment, then perhaps they'd be good realtors for you.

But if you want to find a right home, then I'd strongly recommend Nancy. I've been thinking, what gives Nancy her ability to identify right homes for different clients? I guess the combination of Nancy a) having had so many years of experience as a realtor, b) having had so many years in Los Altos, Palo Alto and MountainView, c) being a loving mother, d) her love for high-quality living, and e) being a homeowner of multiple homes herself.

If you want to buy a right home, have no regrets, and, like us, end up loving the home so much you feel you'd never want to sell it, then work with Nancy and Steve. Having witnessed daily frustration and regret from someone very close to me -- you don't want it.

Nancy Carlson has been our Realtor since 2012. She helped us buy our first home which had 36 offers and sell our first home after the covid shutdown!
She also helped buy our second house in Saratoga at a reduced price due to the covid impact. We couldn't have done it without her!
She is very passionate about her work , extremely hardworking, professional and knowledgeable. From choreographing numerous contractors, stagers, etc to negotiating with multiple parties, Nancy brought diligence and attention to the process. It takes a truly special agent to do what Nancy did.It has been nothing but a pleasure to work with Nancy who made the entire process a great success! Would highly recommend her.
Thank you Nancy for all your help!

Nancy is a top notch, full service realtor. We recently purchased a home in Los Altos, and we found her expertise invaluable. She is very knowledgeable, honest, straight forward, reliable, and not in the least bit pushy. She really is a pleasure to work with.

Nancy combined her understanding of our desired home features with her knowledge of Los Altos neighborhoods, schools and city building codes, ideal lot dimensions, home remodel-ability, etc. to give us great advice. The market was in a newish downward trend at the time we were looking. Nancy recognized this and suggested we bid under list. We did, and we got the house we wanted at a fair price!

Once we closed escrow, Nancy continued her quality service by organizing estimates and booking services such as new carpet installation, roofing and tree trimming services and a handyman. She has great contacts that provide excellent and reliable service. This made our move in process seemless and very low stress!

Highly recommend working with Nancy to find your next home!

Nancy is simply the best. She works efficiently, gets to know us (first time buyers) and helps close the deal seamlessly.

1) Understanding our timeframe - with our hectic schedules, we knew we wanted to act fast when the time came. Nancy was incredibly responsive in her emails, messaged us via text and met us in person when needed. She prepped us perfectly. We went to an open house Sat/Sun and the Seller accepted our offer by Monday because all of our documentation was in place with trusted parties. (Win!)

2) Upfront and direct - Nancy is to the point and will provide her honest opinion - she is the perfect agent. She has the experience and has an eye for working within your means. We appreciated the feedback and reality of finding a home in Silicon Valley. We put in our first offer and it was accepted!! (Woohoo!)

3) Closing - A stack of documents but Nancy was instrumental in helping coordinate with our mortgage lender, title company, insurance, etc to have it all synchronize by close date. She went through the due diligence materials and guided us when we wanted to no longer look at small print and too many words. We made it to the end. (She was a wonderful conductor!)

We were incredibly lucky - we looked at two homes and was able to purchase on our first offer with the second house. It was incredibly fast and efficient with little stress. Thank you, Nancy!! Definitely will be the agent I highly recommend to all friends and family who are looking to purchase in SV. :D

There aren't stars enough on Yelp to reflect how wonderful of an agent Nancy is. Nancy helped us with both the purchase of a home as well as a sale, and we're so glad to have had her by our side. From choreographing numerous contractors, stagers, etc to negotiating with multiple parties, Nancy brought diligence and attention to the process that we don't believe we could have gotten anywhere else. It takes a truly special agent to do what Nancy did; she handled the process as if it was her own home that she was buying or selling.

Hopefully we never move again, but if we do, we know who our agent will be!

We reached out to Nancy on Jul 18, 2017, and she helped us buy our dream home on Aug 23, 2017, in one of the best Los Altos locations, and at a very fair price; that's only 36 days total. We won our dream home on our first bid.

As a first-time home buyer and a couple unfamiliar with Bay Area neighborhoods, we interviewed 5 top realtors; some had the best Yelp reviews, some were via strong recommendations by our close family members. All of them turned out excellent, but we decided to work with Nancy and it clearly was one of the best decisions we've made in our lives so far.

As we close out our deal, I'd like to share why you should work with Nancy:

a) In addition to being a experience deal maker and real estate investor, she's also a home enthusiast. She's successful because she has a genuine passion for homes; she has a sharp smell for the goods and bads of a home, and for which homes would suit which of her clients.

Other realtors may be able to win a fair bid for you, but if you need good advise on what will make a good home for YOU, then work with Nancy.

b) She has great reputation amongst the Los Altos realtors. Quite a few selling agents, upon hearing that we were working with Nancy, told us: oh, she's a very good realtor, please give her my regards. This allowed us to enjoy a great level of trust from the sell side during our short but intensive home search.

c) She is very diligent, and she partners with her husband Steve, who is also a certified realtor for Intero. They cover each other. As soon as a property was listed, we reviewed and if interested, one of them would take us there, long before the open house. This allowed us much more lead time than other bidders.

d) She does great comps and does not push us to bid high in order to get the deal closed. On multiple occasions, our comp was higher than hers and she discouraged us to higher our bid, believing that the home wasn't really for us, especially at those high price points; turned out, she was right with those cases, and we didn't go bid.

e) She's always available. If she's busy during the day, she'll work until late night to finish comps or review disclosures with us.

f) She really knows what the fair price is, and also what it would take to win a deal. Because we saw how well she did her comps, she had our trust. When we finally decided to submit our bid, she gave us her suggestion, we ran with it, and won the bid. It was a very fair price for both the seller and for us.

g) She always replies very quickly to email and text.

Finally, we just feel that she's extremely passionate about finding the right homes for her clients. She gets a lot of satisfaction from achieving this. This is really what's making her successful.

Nancy went above and beyond to find us a great home on our first attempt. Due to her knowledge, warmth, and perseverance, we succeeded in purchasing a wonderful home in the South Bay, despite competing against multiple offers. She provided expert guidance throughout the entire home purchasing process. We weren't sure we would be able to figure out this crazy housing market, but Nancy made a potentially painful process a great success!
- Annie & Dave

Nancy earns 11stars on a 5 star scale!
We have partnered with Nancy twice, most recently to sell our Los Altos home. In both cases, she performed and delivered in a spectacular fashion.
If you need a "playbook" she has that. If you prefer a less structured approach she does that. She is superb at every aspect of buying and selling. Of course she knows the ins and outs of the process and transactions...more though is that she is fantastic with aspects about which most buyers and sellers never consider. She is well connected and well regarded among the Realtor community. Quality Realtors prefer to work with other quality Realtors as it keeps the process smooth and unpleasant surprises to a minimum. Nancy does this, too. Topping it off is that she's smart and funny. In our transactions she was also always right.
When you want the best, you want Nancy!

"Nancy was referred to me by a friend who has been working with her for years. Nancy was an extraordinary partner in the sale of my home in Los Altos. She worked tirelessly on my behalf and demonstrated the utmost in integrity throughout the process. I'd recommend her whole-heartedly to anyone wishing to sell their home." JR

“In our experience, what sets Nancy apart is her unique combination of analytic skills together with her unwavering commitment to helping find the house that was exactly right for us. Her dedication and professionalism toward achieving this objective was unprecedented from all of our prior real estate transactions with other realtors.” JS

“Nancy helped us sell a home in Danville and buy a home in Los Altos. When we found the home we wanted, she went to great lengths to ensure that our offer would be selected from the multiple offers the sellers were considering. Thanks to Nancy we also sold our existing home quickly with multiple offers. She is incredibly customer-focused, and will do everything in her power to ensure that the buying and selling experience is excellent.” DT

“I want to express my appreciation for all the hard work you did towards the sale of my parents’ home in Los Altos. After interviewing realtors in the area, I don't think I could have made a better choice. Your experience, professional expertise, and understanding the nature of this sale was more than I could have expected. Your approach and strategy was perfect! ” JM

"Nancy's understanding of the business allowed us to be competitive in a market that was rapidly leaving us behind. We feel very strongly that if it were not for her, we would not be homeowners today." BS

“We had worked with another agent but didn’t have much luck navigating the South Bay/Peninsula real estate market. The day we met with Nancy everything turned around and we were in our fabulous new home within 2 months. She is one of the most professional, responsible, competent people I have worked with in any capacity. She followed through on every detail of the process quickly; and we always felt confident because we knew we had her on our side.” CP, JH

“We were very impressed with Nancy as our agent in the purchase of our condo. In the past 20 years, we have been involved with about 20 transactions related to selling or buying a home, so we've worked with a lot of RE agents. We think she is one of the top agents we've worked with.” JL, LR