Jodi Nishimura Group - Berkeley, California

Caroline Stewart

My experience with Jodi and her team at Kai Real Estate was nothing short of perfection. My brother and I hired Jodi to sell our father's house in North/Central Berkeley in Spring 2024, and from the moment we first met with her to the day it closed, everything went exactly as planned and projected.

In the beginning, Jodi presented us with area comps, which was a bit of a challenge since there were barely any, but those plus her thorough knowledge and understanding of the local market, neighborhoods, even down to specific blocks, we were able to get an idea of the value of the house and set our expectations. We discussed/decided upon various updates to the home to maximize the value, and her team was able to handle all of the work such as manage the contractors, painters, ordering of materials, gardeners, and everything else that was involved which was a huge relief to us. She would present us with a few materials/colors options that her team had already filtered and we would pick one. It made the process simple, quick, and not overwhelming at all. Kai Real Estate already has established relationships with local contractors who do excellent work and made themselves available for our project in order to keep our timeline on track.

For the first few weeks of the process, I should also mention that Jodi's team patiently worked around my brother and I as we finished clearing out the house as there was still quite a bit of furniture and other possessions that we had to relocate. Once the house was empty though it was game on and they went full speed ahead, and the house was staged and looked amazing exactly in time for the first open house, which was a huge success thanks to Kai's excellent and extensive marketing.

Every member of Jodi's team that we interacted with was professional, punctual, highly competent, honest, and friendly, reinforcing our decision to hire Kai Real Estate to sell my father's house which was a very emotional process for me and my brother. I felt very assured that we were in good hands every step of the way, and I knew all the details were getting handled without either of us having to micromanage or inquire. That being said, when curiosity got the better of us and we sent a text or email in between their update reports, Jodi always responded quickly to answer all our questions. With so many moving parts in a short timeframe (it was about 8 weeks start to finish if I recall) it was a huge weight off our shoulders to hand the process over to a local, established, professional team that I knew was going to absolutely crush it, which they did, and for which I am forever grateful.

Caroline

Manolis Kounelakis

Highly recommend working with Jodi and her group. We had a very good experience buying our first house. She took time to understand our needs and over time proved that she cared to find the right home for us.

Julie A. Shackleton

We stepped tentatively into the Oakland housing market, expecting to be met with confusion, intimidation, and frustration. Our experience was anything but thanks to Jodi and her team's fantastic depth of knowledge and personal support. Jodi spent time getting to know our situation and our priorities. She helped us set expectations and educated us on factors that were of particular importance for our situation. Jodi's recommendations, both in terms of resources as well as opportunities were carefully curated to our needs. And she was and continues to be readily available for the questions that come up. We are now proud homeowners, having been comprehensively supported by Jodi and her team. As a second time buyer, I can't speak highly enough of the experience.
Somehow she managed to guide us to our new home in a neighborhood we thought was out of reach and we had an offer accepted within a week of starting to look!
Jodi has a deep network of colleagues as well such that she has always been able to steer us in the right direction with regard to our real estate needs. We have nothing but the highest regard for her level of service and expertise and have enthusiastically recommended her to our friends.
If you need a supportive realtor in the East Bay to get the job done, call Jodi and her team right now!

Meredith Evancie

We worked with Jodi and Maria to purchase our first home, and we would recommend them to anyone looking to buy in the East Bay, especially in the Oakland/Berkeley area. They were super knowledgeable and helped us navigate an unfamiliar and emotional decision.

* Deep History and Knowledge in the Area. We were looking in Piedmont, Rockridge and Elmwood, and it was obvious throughout that they were familiar with the local market and price differences/types of houses/competitiveness in these submarkets. The advice they were able to give on these different neighborhoods helped us narrow down and focus our search. They also had relationships with all the listing agents, and that helped ease the process, as the Bay Area is a very insular market, so there is a lot of value to having your agent know the seller’s agent.

* Flexibility and Responsiveness. Jodi and Maria were always responsive to us and our many questions, willing to respond to texts or emails or hop on a zoom. This was very comforting as everything seemed to move quickly. Also, because we were not living in the East Bay when we were looking we were only able to meet in person on the weekends, and Jodi and Maria were always willing to give up their weekends to meet on our schedule (including scheduling last minute private showings).

* Truly Represented Us. We feel like Jodi and Maria were looking out for us and representing us through this process. With the house we bought, when we met to discuss the offer amount, they advised us to offer an amount that was less than we had been expecting. Then the night before offers were due they let us know that we would likely be the only offer and recommended that we drop our offer amount by $150,000, and we ended up getting the house for less than we expected. We would never have known that we were the only offer if they hadn’t told us, and they could easily withheld that information or not pressed the seller’s agent about what other offers were coming in and received a larger commission on the higher home price, as we would have been pretty content with our initial offer amount. Their representation also continued after our offer was accepted, and they helped us navigate the escrow period and even initial items after closing.

* Made Us Feel More Comfortable. Because we were first time home-buyers, the entire process was new to us, and we truly couldn’t have navigated it without Jodi and Maria. They had multiple hours-long meetings with us about how to read disclosures, they explained the cycle of the market, they helped us determine offer amount and were generally able to answer any questions we had. Basically, whatever we thought a buyer’s agent did before working with Jodi and Maria, it turned out that they actually do at least 4x as much. There were times they’d say something like, “well when I called the Piedmont school district” or “so I talked to sellers’ agent about the screens,” and our reaction would just be, “wow, didn’t know they were doing that.” We felt that whatever we didn’t know we were supposed to be doing or inspecting or asking about, it was OK because Jodi and Maria were doing it for us.

Tony Kay

When we moved from Oakland to Vermont, we needed someone we could trust with getting the Oakland house spruced up and sold without our involvement. Jodi had come highly recommended so we went with her. She has the ability to walk into a space and see it with fresh eyes from a buyer's perspective. She is able to perceive how a space "feels". She was sensitive to how difficult it can be for a seller who has lived in a house for 35 years to approve fairly radical changes. But she correctly counseled us that a buyer sees only what is there, not what has been changed. So we went 100% with her recommended changes. All the construction work was completed right on schedule (in spite of pandemic supply chain issues) and on budget. Offers came in quickly and we got a sales price at the high end of the market. All the paperwork got done remotely, and easily for us in spite of us being super busy moving into our Vermont home. When you get Jodi, you get her whole support team as well, and they are all very professional with excellent communication. Making a move like this is a major life change and it really helped to have someone like Jodi who we could count on!

Terri Nishimura

If you are looking for a realtor who has high integrity, good communication skills, very responsive, flexible, responsible and incredibly creative - no need to look further. We were so fortunate to find Jodi to help a relative sell a home that she inherited. Jodi was very patient and took her time to communicate all that was going on. She came up with a game plan and a budget to renovate the home before selling. Compass Realty covered the upfront expenses of the renovations and Jodi helped to coordinate and kept us abreast the entire time. We pretty much trusted her to make all the decisions (she has an interior designer vision). She stayed within the budget and her timeline was right on. The transformation of the old house to a super cute home ensured many people wanting to buy it. In fact we loved it so much that we even considered wanting to live there too! Best of all, the selling price was way above what we had hoped for. Although it is a sellers market, we give kudos to Jodi for all that she did to get the house ready for sale (curbside appeal was off the chart) and for her outreach and marketing to get a large pool of interest. Thank you Jodi for making this process quick and stress free. I highly recommend Jodi and will use her for all our real estate needs in the future. She is that GOOD!

Aadi Weber

My wife and I chose Jodi for the sale of our Berkeley home, and we were not disappointed. She has impressive real estate acumen, which includes an understanding of design concept, pricing strategy, and Berkeley's unique, distinct neighborhoods. Additionally, Jodi has a team of individuals who seamlessly handle everything, e.g., operations, listing related matters, documentation, etc. And all the above benefits resulted in our receiving a sales price for our home which was beyond expectations!

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not mention what a joy it is to interact with Jodi, for she has the wonderful combination of competence, humility, and kindness. And, she is a very focused, "present" listener who was attuned to our needs and always remained calm, balanced. and graceful. If you are in need of a real estate professional, look no further than the Jodi Nishimura Group; you will be very satisfied with both the results and the interaction.

Vanessa Doherty

Jodi is an amazing realtor! The constant professional who knows the east bay market so well. She came to visit us and view our home. She told us that our home will sell and recommended a price. We decided to do a “coming soon” release on MLS to test out our current market. We had to leave town so she staged our house (using our furniture), took gorgeous pictures, held gatherings and showings while we were away. It sold! The first family who viewed our home gave us our asking price. Later we found out that it was her personal conversation with that broker that motivated him to show our home. We were so relieved to find her and so happy how she got us through selling a home in this market. We highly recommend her!