Mark Playsted – Pacific Union International

As first-​time homebuyers, we wanted to make sure we did our due diligence at every stage in the process — visiting lots of open houses and interviewing multiple candidates when we looked for a lender and Realtor. Mark impressed us from the get-​go, and kept it up through what turned out to be a long and complex escrow process, and we recommend him highly. He had good knowledge of Oakland’s neighborhoods to share, and he gave us helpful advice when we were preparing to make offers. Once we were in escrow, he did a great job of being proactive, staying on top of communication with the sellers’ agent and using his network of professional contacts to keep the process moving forward.
We’re probably like a lot of young buyers in this area — we didn’t want a lot of hand-​holding or to feel like we were being steered toward anything, but at the same time we had lots of questions and wanted to be kept in the loop on everything. Mark did a great job accommodating us in these respects — he was consistently responsive via phone or email, he could make time in the evenings to set up viewings on short notice, and he was happy to ‘talk shop’ about how things were going, and it felt like his priority was that we’d end up in a home we were happy with (as opposed to closing a deal and getting his commission).
We found Mark through a listing of Redfin’s «partner agents», and we were able to use our existing Redfin account (faved listings, etc) working with him.

I fired the first broker I had here in the area, she kept pressuring me to buy.
Then Mark Playsted called me responding to my request of information in Redfin and within a month I am a property owner in Emeryville! He is awesome and gets it, understands his client and takes all my calls, and I call a lot! So happy!