Harold Ray and his wife, Penny, lived just down the street from me. Harold was a distinguished engineer, Navy veteran, and former president of the American Nuclear Society. When he reached out to me to sell their home, I was thrilled to help.

“I knew what I wanted…”

.

“I knew of Eva. Her for-sale signs were everywhere in that neighborhood, which has a lot of very large homes. She also lived down the street from us. I used to see her on walks around the block past Old Mill and the Huntington Garden. After reaching out to her, she came by the house on one of those walks.

“She was very interested in what my goals were. I spent my life doing transactions of all kinds, and I knew what I wanted: timing and a clean deal, one that didn’t leave any tails behind, as I call them. Going into it, I wasn’t sure I could depend on that happening. But it did. This was as good as it gets.

.

.

“The house itself presented real complications. Built on a property that was at least 100 years old, the drain lines and fences were much older than the house itself. The sewer line was a particular challenge. All of that was inspected, serviced where needed, and met every requirement for closing. Eva and the people around her who handled everything were first class. I very much appreciated what they brought to the process.

“Perhaps the biggest challenge was the downsizing. Moving from a house of more than 4,000 square feet to a senior living community is a real effort, much different than relocating from one house to another. We had to choose what to retain and what to let go of. Some things went to our daughter. Others went to storage. We had another organization helping us with the physical move, and Eva’s team worked seamlessly on some major things alongside them.

.

“The offer we ultimately accepted came in before we even held the open houses. And with the timing, the price, and thirty years of appreciation all working in our favor, we were very pleased with the result.

“We’ll miss a lot about that home. Our daughter and her family live very close in San Marino. Instead of walking over to their house as we had for thirty years, we’ll now have to drive. And we can no longer bring the whole family together under one roof the way we had. Those were real losses, and I won’t pretend otherwise.

“But the community we moved to has a lot of folks we know, people we are looking forward to being closer to, and even more people we are eager to meet. That has been a real positive motivator and something we are truly excited about. And Eva’s support made the whole process tremendously easy. We felt blessed by it.”

The home sold above our asking price in seven days to a cash buyer for $3,150,000. There were no repair credits, no price reductions, and escrow was smooth. The outcome was exactly what Harold hoped for. And I was honored to help my neighbors step gracefully into their retirement… plus.