Sivane Halvorsen
Founding partner
Valuations and hillside property. Has walked most of Tiburon Ridge on foot, twice.
A firm built around turning work away
Most brokerages grow by taking more instructions. We capped ours at fourteen a year in 2004 and have not moved it since.
Why the cap
The number came from a mistake
In 2003 the firm carried thirty-one instructions. Nine of them sold below the valuation we had given, and two owners moved out before we found a buyer.
Reviewing it afterwards, the pattern was not the market. It was that no one had visited eleven of those houses more than once. A property you have walked through twice is a property you can describe honestly; one you have seen in photographs is not.
Fourteen is simply how many two partners can hold in their heads properly. It is not a marketing position, though we accept it reads like one.
What we hold to
Four rules, and what each one costs us
Two valuations, given separately
Partners do not confer first. It takes twice as long and occasionally embarrasses us in front of the client.
No sole-agency lock-in
Leave whenever you like, no notice period, no fee. Roughly one owner a year does exactly that.
We advise waiting
If spring will beat autumn, we say so. That is a commission deferred by six months, sometimes lost entirely.
Faults go in the listing
Damp, flight paths, a boiler on its last year. It narrows the buyer pool and it stops sales collapsing at survey.
The people
Four of us, and you will meet at least two
We do not publish staff photographs. You will see faces at the valuation, which is where it actually matters.
Tobrin Reeve
Founding partner
Waterfront and conversions. Handles every chain personally through to completion.
Marlisse Okonwe
Private register
Matches off-market homes to registered buyers. Knows the register by memory.
Emeric Vals
Surveys & land
Structural checks and boundary work before anything is published.
Where we work
One county, and not an inch beyond it
Sausalito, Tiburon, Belvedere, Mill Valley, Larkspur, Corte Madera, Ross and San Anselmo. If your property sits outside those eight, we are the wrong firm and will say so on the phone.
It is a small area to build a business on. It also means we know which streets flood, which schools have catchment pressure, and which quiet lane gets loud at seven in the morning.
Ask us what your house is worth
Two partners, two separate figures, no obligation and no follow-up calls unless you ask for them.