If you do most of your work via email, I may be the agent for you.

If you're the office Google expert, I may be the agent for you. 

If you dream of building your own country estate, I may be the agent for you.

If you prowl old neighborhoods looking for the perfect fixer, I may be the agent for you.

My happiest days as an agent are spent with buyers looking for a property that will make them happy. I'll scour the Guerneville woods, the apple orchards of Sebastopol, the beaches near Jenner, the beautiful vineyards and valleys around Healdsburg, and the Railroad Square and downtown areas of Santa Rosa looking for the right fit. I enjoy the mental detective work involved in helping clients understand themselves and what they really want in a house, and will persevere until we find the house that will become their home.

My favorite clients include technophiles, authors, young families, and plenty of just plain folks. In me they found a language loving agent that enjoys clients with brains, has a deep sense of house-finding duty, and a willingness to approach the house finding task with humor and enthusiasm. I like funny clients, serious clients, childless clients, massive families with oodles of kids, careful drivers, big lunch eaters, booze hounds, foodies, sports fans, and tree huggers. That's a partial list. I'm sure I'll like you, no matter who you are, and that we'll have a great time looking for a place.

I'm a happily married father of two grown children. I love Wild Jane, my jazz singing spouse of thirty years. We live in a redwood forest in Guerneville near the Russian River and have a lovely grand-dogger poodle. I've been a general building contractor, renewable energy expert, computer consultant, and restaurant owner. My business goal in life is to connect you with the property of your dreams. 

On the flip side of the real estate equation, I'd love to represent you during the sale of your fixer, your splendid redwoods, or your serene, pond-covered retreat. I'll build you a web site, crank our brochures in record time, and plaster the Internet with slide shows and great coverage on the third party real estate sites. Most importantly, I'll keep you up to date with the marketing, showings, and sales process. 

I'm very proud to be associated with Eric Drew and the Healdsburg Sotheby's International Realty team. I first started working with Eric over 23 years ago when he brought me to his weekly staff meetings to train his agents on the Macintosh computer soon after it was introduced. Eric has always embraced both history and new technology and our office is awash in maps, photography, historical documents,and the latest GIS software. My fellow agents are smart, professional, and fun to work with as well as being immensely experienced.

I talked about fixers and country estates earlier, and I'd like to expand on those topics. Fixers is a very general term. My definition would include a house that isn't just worn out, but that also include some character or detail that gives the property some extra value. A fixer, by that definition, implies that something in the house is worth salvaging. Maybe it's a perfect setting, a beautifully detailed porch, or generous proportions that catch the eye. It might be historically significant like the first barn in Healdsburg. Those examples are what define a fixer for me.

I like to search for those special fixers for my clients and determine if there is a reasonable opportunity to "fix" them. In many cases, the asking price is too close to the value of the "fixed" property and there is no chance for a reasonable return. In other cases, the work required to restore or upgrade the house to the required level is just too costly to undertake. Somewhere between those two extremes is a fair purchase price and a home that needs just enough fixing to be done that the buyer can realize a profit by doing the work. It's those few homes that I most enjoy pursuing. The fact that I have taught construction to homeowners and have been a licensed general contractor gives me more insight in this field.

The second category I enjoy searching for is classic country estate property. Sonoma County has a wide variety of terrain that includes forests, river valleys, hillside view sites, vineyards, orchards, beaches, and even geothermal mountain land. We can't offer you Sierra-like snow conditions or Hawaiian beach type property, but just about everything else is available. Whether you want five acres or five hundred, I'd love to help you find the property that can support your dream. I'm well versed in the requirements of the county for water, septic, roads, building, fire roads and all the other regulations that control what you are able to do with your land. I've got some lovely multiple parcel properties for family or group compounds that I'd love to show you.

needless to say,
we've thought of you often

[we *did* make it clear
how much we preferred you
to all other realtors
we dealt with
hands down
...and feet and knees
and shoulders...?]

Pamela Ryan