Kathleen Murphy & Michael Baranowski

Kathleen Murphy & Michael Baranowski are is our number one realtors when you need a new home
thank you guys

Kathleen Murphy represented me when I listed and sold me condo on the Richmond/​El Sobrante border just east of I-​80 in Spring 2016. I recommend her without reservation, I found her conduct to be efficient, moral, clear, friendly and detail oriented. Basically– everything I was looking for in an agent.
She created a website and great marketing materials, saw to the open house and helped me stage with existing items. She did her homework on the comparative sales to forecast how we might appraise and then used that to apply to the different offers we received. Escrow was low stress and we closed on time (17 days total) with a stress free sale.
I’m likely going to leave the bay area for points south, but if I were going to stay I would keep Kathleen on the top of my list of agents to call when transacting property.
Kasey Gardner

My husband and I can not recommend Kathleen and Michael enough! We had been house hunting in the San Rafael area for 7 months with our prior realtor, and something just wasn’t working. We felt like our needs weren’t being met, we felt like we weren’t being taken seriously, and we didn’t feel like he was putting in any work for us. So after much consideration and research, we reached decided to end our relationship with our first realtor and reach out to Kathleen and Michael. Within an hour we received a warm, attentive, and in-​depth response from Kathleen, and within 3 days we were in her office meeting with her and Michael. We spend over an hour with them, talking about our vision for our future home. We could tell right away that Kathleen and Michael not only know the area, the inventory, and the market, but they truly are invested in their clients as people and take the time to get to know their likes and needs.
Later than week, Kathleen and Michael drove us around to 5 or 6 homes and prepared a booklet for us with printouts of the all the information. We were so impressed that we were escorted as well as given a prepared booklet of the homes we would be touring!
As luck would have it, the last house we saw was the first home in 7 months that we really connected with. Once we decided to make an offer, Kathleen was on top of it. She went above and beyond to present the offer in person, keep in contact with us and our loan agent about the process, and to enhance her connection with the listing agent. We are convinced that our offer was accepted because of the relationship and reputation Kathleen and Michael have in Marin and the Bay Area. Although our time with Kathleen and Michael as our agents was not long, we were blown away by their attentiveness and dedication to us.
Thank you, Kathleen and Michael, for helping us finally find our house. We are home, and couldn’t have done it without you! We have already given their names to many of our friends considering buying a home in the Bay Area. Don’t hesitate. One email or phone call to them and you will be convinced! Happy house hunting!!!

Michael and Kathleen, your kindness and excellent work ethics were appreciated from day one to the finish of this sale which will be reached this week. It is indeed a pleasure working with both of you. As I said last week, your team is a «class act». Your communication, timeliness and organizational skills are outstanding. The listing online and the flyers are beautiful.
As a senior citizen, who has been out of the mainstream for several years, I thank you for your patience and for sharing your expertise and suggestions to facilitate the sale of our home. On behalf of my centenarian mother, thank you for the expeditious sale of the house. It relieved a lot of stress for both of us.
The rating for Kathleen and Michael is at least 10 stars but only 5 were available.

As others have said, excellent experience with Michael and Kathleen. Second time using them and will continue to in the future. They both were extremely knowledgeable and guided us through the process of buying and selling with minimal stress. Its tough enough dealing with buying and selling a home but they kept us updated everyday, answered my texts at all hours of the day, and communicated very well with the other agents.
They were able to sell both of our homes for over the list price and still get us into new homes under list. Much of our financial success in rea. They have helped us into a very comfortable life

Kathleen is amazing! She was attentive, supportive and knowledgeable! Kathleen and Michael make a good team! They made buying our first home an easy and fun experience. Emails and calls were answered within a heartbeat. Kathleen walked us through each step with patience and kindness. They were organized, prepared and professional.
I’m grateful to be writing this review in our new home. I highly recommend Kathleen and Michael if you are looking to purchase property in the Bay Area!

Kathleen and Michael helped us find our forever home and… they can help you too!
We were living in a very small apartment for a year after moving to the Bay Area from Philadelphia. We were ready to buy a home and Kathleen and Michael handled everything for us. We fell in love with a place they showed us in beautiful Novato with amazing views. We made an offer that was accepted and have been living our California dream for nearly 6 mos now. The best decision we made was introducing ourselves to Kathleen and Michael. Call them, You’ll be so happy you did!

Where do I begin with Kathleen. Let’s start with detailed knowledge, skill, experience, and a positive «can do» attitude. From the day I met Kathleen I had a good feeling about her. She worked methodically, yet sensitively, while selling my town home. This is the 4^th home I have purchased in my lifetime, and this by far is the most pleasant.
I have never rated any service as high as I rate Kathleen. I would recommend her to anyone who is serious about selling or buying a home.
If you want the best, you will hire the team of Kathleen and Michael.

This second review and second home buying experience certainly cements the fact that Kathleen and Michael are the best in the business. They know the market and give you the best advice. Our experience with them this time around includes both selling our home and purchasing a new home.
In selling our home, Kathleen gave sound advice on when to put our home on the market and advised us on the list price. Kathleen and Michael definitely know marketing and they present it well too. I love that they take the effort to come up with a nicely bound report that provides you with the research of what houses in the area were sold for. They did a great job marketing the home with their excellent photography skills, professionally printer flyers and staging. Kathleen fronted everything for us and the best part of it was if we met a roadblock, Kathleen would problem solve it before coming to us and that helps immensely knowing that she took care of business.
With our home purchase, Kathleen understood our needs and kept us steady on our course to find us our new home. She was always reassuring when steering us through this roller coaster journey.
As a client, what I appreciated about Kathleen was her accessibility (I could always get in touch with her through email, text, and phone to get my answers) and that is excellent customer service. She was also on top of her game and was often following up with all aspects of our transaction — whether it was selling our home or ensuring our appointments are set up for house hunting. She provides a full real estate concierge experience — hand holding us from the initial process right through till the end.
With Kathleen, we had absolute confidence in her guidance and experience. She is a true professional and incredibly sharp in this business.
In sum it up, Kathleen and Michael give you the 3Es — EFFICIENT, EXPERIENCED, EDUCATIONAL and the two important Rs — RESPONSIVE AND RESOURCEFUL. Whether buying or selling a home, Kathleen and Michael, will be your rockstar team hands down and I wholeheartedly recommend them.

Kathleen and Michael are two of the most amazing, personable, respectful, hard working, reliable, honest, and (etc) people I have ever met. Our condo in the Canal was a challenge to sell. They knew how to market it and had connections to do so. They are damn good realtors. They know what they are working with and can adapt to any situation that arises. I cannot complement the two of them enough.
Given their reviews on Unilocal,I think anyone can see they are good at what they do. Not only are they good at what they do, they LOVE what they do! It’s easy to see that by the enthusiasm they exude.
Thank you, you two!!! We are forever grateful for your effort and excitement. A house on the market for only 25 days (including escrow and close) is a WIN for everyone!!!

This year we decided to sell our Victorian flat in San Francisco — a difficult decision since we really loved the place and held many memories and happy times there. All of the emotions wrapped up in a real estate transaction like ours can make for a very difficult process unless you have professionals like Kathleen and Michael handling the sale. They understood our emotional attachment to this home and effectively guided us through the landmines of a San Francisco real estate transaction. We achieved all we wanted from the sale including the price, the transition to our new place, and minimizing the headaches associated with all the paperwork. Plus, they schooled the buyers agent and title company to the point where without them, we’re not sure all would have happened as timely or efficiently. Their real estate knowledge, marketing expertise, and ability to deal with our emotional ups and downs were stellar every step of the way. We give Kathleen and Michael our highest recommendation and will definitely use them for all future transactions!

I have to tell you, until very recently I had this idea in my head that real estate agents were essentially a necessary evil, these vaguely parasitic people who took a large commission and didn’t do much work in the process.
Kathleen Murphy disabused me of this notion.
She worked proactively and efficiently with me on a short sale that took FIVE MONTHS to complete. That length of time was imposed upon us by the Byzantine setup of the ownership situation: occupants in arrears, two separate banks who owned two separate loans on the property (and couldn’t agree with each other), delinquent HOA fees, and ultimately (sadly) the unexpected death of one of the sellers. Circumstance threw the book at us, and Kathleen calmly swatted each obstacle aside, came up with a plan, and dealt with it. She suggested alternate properties to me at several junctures but respected the fact that I did intend to buy this (seemingly ill-​starred) place, and after the banks finally came to an agreement with each other, she moved quickly and efficiently to ensure that close of escrow took place well within the time window we had.
I would recommend her in a heartbeat. She was always available, always had sound answers and advice, and steered me through the process of all the various inspections and expected costs. It felt like working with a top-​class lawyer who also understood the human side of buying a home. Massive difference from the UK (where I come from) where most estate agents feel like useless chancers with no specialist knowledge or ability. She fought my corner at every turn and the really strange thing is that a story that sounds like it ought to have been full of screaming and hair-​pulling on my part was in fact an oddly serene and stress-​free experience. It just required patience and time, and at no point did I think that we weren’t on top of everything and ready for whatever was around the corner. And she continued to be a source of advice in the weeks after buying the home. I can’t tell you that she’s the best in Marin simply because she was the only agent I tried. I CAN tell you that I thought she was excellent.

I will keep this short & sweet… Kathleen is the best realtor I have encountered! I would not hesitate for a second to call on her for any real estate needs. She is thorough, efficient, knowledgeable, detailed, and very pleasant to work with. It was a stress free sale and she handled EVERYTHING! Do yourself a favor and contact Kathleen for the sale of your home. You won’t regret it!

If you are reading this, congratulations! You just found the best real estate agent you could ever wish to have. Kathleen is knowledgeable, efficient and very detailed about every aspect of selling your home for you.
I just sold my home in Pinole through Kathleen and I got the price I wanted, the time frame I wanted and none of the contingencies I didn’t want. She was truly my agent, because she represented me with my best possible interests in mind throughout the entire process.
Not only did Kathleen show the home during open houses, she and Michael also took wonderful pictures of my home, did a website and fliers especially for us, and made sure that the listing was on all of the sites like Zillow, Trulia, etc. She also presented me with a very detailed folder with all the comparables in the neighborhood so that we knew we were asking for the best possible price.
Kathleen always answered my phone calls, text messages and emails within minutes and was always there when I needed her. Do yourself a favor and rely on Kathleen and Michael to help you buy or sell your home. You will not regret it.

Kathleen Murphy handled sale of my condo. She is the best realtors I have known. She is truly an expert in her field and she really understands what awesome service is all about and delivers. She did thorough market analysis, generated multiple offers, and helped me pick the offer that was best for my situation. It’s usually difficult to deal with HOA but she handled that expertly and got the escrow closed in a very short time. I really appreciated her excellent and honest communication style that made me feel that I knew what was going on during the whole transaction period. Thank you Kathleen!

Kathleen and Michael are a fantastic team to work with on every level! We needed to relocate to Santa Rosa from Texas so we needed someone who was on the ball to help be our eyes and ears. We had tried two agents prior to finding Kathleen and Michael. The first agent was good, but there just wasn’t that professional chemistry we desired. The second agent was far from on the ball causing us to miss a couple other properties. Though everything happens for a reason so after the last agent was screwing up I decided to check out some reviews on Unilocal.That’s when I found our winning team, Kathleen and Michael. They are not only friendly, easy to talk to, and caring, but they were professional, prompt, thorough, and educated. We were in complete chaos trying to get ready to move during the holidays and they were available every step of the way… during holidays (which isn’t always easy to find).
Their relationships with others in the industry also proved to be important. We needed to close early due to the arrival of our moving truck. Kathleen and Michael stayed in the loop with the lenders, inspectors, loan officers, appraisers, etc so everything could take off as smooth as possible. Not only did we close in only 26 days, but those 26 days were smack in the middle of Christmas and New Years yet it all went great.
Lastly, the personal touch these two offer is hands down top notch! They truly care about their clients, listen, and take those extra steps. I feel like we not only found a great team for our real estate needs, we found friends. If you need agents who will go the extra mile and provide the full package, Kathleen and Michael are certainly the team for you.

We were in the market to buy our first home. We had been working with a real estate agent for the first six months of 2013; we put in several offers, all above asking price, but we weren’t having any luck. Low inventory, lots of cash offers, etc etc… we were frustrated. We were referred to Kathleen through a friend, and had the pleasure to start working with her.
I can’t tell you how much of a relief it was working with Kathleen. The experience was short and sweet — within a week of contacting her, we put in an offer on a house that I was SURE was a long shot. It was a great house… great location, move-​in ready, etc. Offer accepted. A little over a month later and we moved in. I know things don’t always work out like that, but I can tell you there was a lot more than luck involved. From the get-​go, Kathleen was super attentive and a superb communicator. She was matter-​of-​fact honest, available through emails, texts, and in-​person visits, and her experience and personability really shone through in every way. She worked side-​by-​side with us throughout the process, from the open house visits and the offers we put in with her, to the complexities of the closing process, keeping us in the loop the whole time. Michael joined us for house visits, and his words of wisdom and great sense of humor really added a lot to the experience as well.
The first time home-​buying process was pretty bewildering for us, and I can’t tell you how much it helped to have the level of experience, professionalism, and attentiveness that we got from Kathleen. I feel like that is exactly what we needed in this competitive market, and I will highly recommend her to all friends and family.

I recently had a transaction with Kathleen on a property in Danville where I represent the buyer. I can’t even begin to tell you how professional she is to deal with. She has this down! Not only her professionalism shines through, she’s also compassionate and REALLY does care about people!
It’s really rare to find agents «with heart,» like Kathleen, who is not only sympathetic, but also professional and understanding. It’s good to know that there are still agents like her that are not focused so much about «the bottom line,» but are truly willing to give good people a chance to purchase a home.
If I wasn’t an agent and I was looking for an agent to buy or sell my home, I would definitely use her! I’ve been in the business for 10 years now… and I’ve seen all kinds of agents out there… and Kathleen is definitely in my top percentile that I would do business with again!
Thank you Kathleen! Your kindness, professionalism, passion, and compassion does not go un-noticed…and I know somehow, somewhere, you will be rewarded at a higher level.

I am very thankful for all the hard work that Kathleen and Michael provided in purchasing my first home. Kathleen was very flexible with her availability to look at many homes, provided thorough explanations on the changing real estate market and really focused on what was within reason and met my needs. I had worked with two other realtors who pushed properties that were not within my parameters. No mater what I continued to communicated, they still didn’t incorporate my feedback or personality into the homes they presented.
My house was a short sale with two bank loans. Apparently, that can make the process more difficult. I had no idea on how everything was going to unfold after making an offer. Over the four month waiting period I was educated on each step and constantly updated. I never had to question why I hadn’t heard anything from my realtor. They provided a recommendation of a reputable foundation inspector and handled several inspections when I was away. When it came down to closing escrow in 7 DAYS! Kathleen helped get EVERYTHING signed, sealed and delivered.
When complications occurred by the the seller’s realtor because of the time crunch, Kathleen fought for what was deserved.
Almost a year later, Kathleen took the time to stop by the house to see how I was settling into my new home. Her enthusiasm on some of the changes I made reassured me again on the massive step I took.
I constantly recommended them to others and now to you.

Kathleen and Michael helped me purchase my first home about 2 years ago and were extremely patient and helpful throughout the process. Being a 1^st time home buyer I had no idea what to expect, so it was great to have their support. I was impressed by the amount of knowledge they have about the real estate market. They were willing to spend the time to show me a countless number of properties to make sure I felt comfortable and understood what I was getting myself into.
It was also very helpful that they knew the ins and outs with bank procedures for attaining a loan and were in constant communication with my loan officer. I had full confidence and trust that they had my best interest in heart. I still feel like they value me as a client, as they consistently send thank you notes around the holidays to show their appreciation.
I would highly recommend working with Kathleen and Michael for any of your real estate needs. They are truly amazing.