Cecily Zhang

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★★★★★
"Cecily helped us buy our dream home in Atherton in 2021, and we couldn’t have been happier with the home and the experience working with her through the transaction and after. A few of her qualities stand out to me:

Cecily has an acute understanding and utter respect for the customer’s needs. From our first few interactions, she built a deep understanding of our lifestyle, priorities, and aesthetic preferences. Her insight was so amazing that she recommended a potential house for us during our first meeting that she toured before but was not on the market at the time - this is the exact house we ended up buying two months later!
Besides knowing her customers,Cecily has strong market insight and I was extremely impressed by her judgment on pricing and negotiations. Her insight enabled us to buy our home in a highly competitive seller's market at a fair price.

Cecily executed a complex transaction flawlessly during the peak of the pandemic when there were delays in many steps of our closing process. She personally stayed on top of every detail and used her knowledge and resources to ensure we closed on time.

Cecily is obsessed with getting what is best for her customer rather than making a quick sale. Throughout the process, it was very clear that Cecily prioritized getting the best home for our needs. She was always candid and respectful in sharing her views on the various homes to guide us toward making the right choice. Her customer obsession didn’t stop at closing either - she provided many resources and references throughout our renovation process and is still just a phone call away whenever I need advice on the house.

Cecily is a true professional with her trustworthiness, market insight, and execution track record, while being a deeply caring human being who is always looking out for her customers." - Yanbing L, Atherton.

★★★★★
"We would like to give our highest possible recommendation to Cecily as a real estate agent. We have worked with a number of real estate agents over the past couple of decades, across the country, including the Bay Area. In short, Cecily is one of the very top agents we have worked with. Her expertise, professionalism, integrity and generosity really set her apart from other excellent agents we have worked with.

We have known Cecily for about eight years. She came to us highly recommended by a friend when we were considering remodeling a house as relatively new comers to the Bay Area without any knowledge of the remodeling scene. Though Cecily had no financial responsibility or gain by helping us, she spent a lot of time personally giving us suggestions, and helping us to find architects and various contractor connections. Without her help, we would have made many first-timer mistakes, wasting money and time. We are deeply grateful for her generosity and selflessness.

Partially due to this experience, we have become good friends with Cecily. She is a treasure of knowledge in the local Bay Area real estate scene, but also has an encyclopedic knowledge of local life in general. We often find her extremely resourceful whenever we have questions, from the school district, to finding nannies.

About two or three years ago, we began the process of home buying. Due to a number of reasons, our requirements for a new home were quite stringent and special. Cecily understood our needs perfectly well, sometimes even better than ourselves. She was patient, resourceful, honest, and very diligent. She took us to see many different houses, and made very professional and smart recommendations. We developed a very trusting relationship along the way.

Because of her diligent work, we found a very fitting house to our family's needs, quite a rare finding at the time. But the price was stretching our limit. We made a family decision the evening before putting down a competitive offer to borrow some money to ensure that we could maximize our chance to get the house. Cecily respected our decision and tried her very best to explain to us all sides of the arguments. But unknown to us, she was still thinking and working hard to help us save money, by studying the situation very carefully. The next morning, minutes before she walked in to present our offer, she called us and asked if we would trust her to let her offer a *smaller* amount of money to the house on our behalf. Please consider this situation - Cecily's commission as an agent is based on a percentage of the final sales price. So financially she had no incentive to do this. Furthermore, in the Bay Area housing market at the time, lowering a bidding offer was a very risky move. It can easily jeopardize our offer if not done right. And she knew this was our dream house. But luckily, we fully trusted her, especially her exceptional knowledge and judgment. Even if we didn't win this bid, we would have respected her last minute decision. But of course, Cecily succeeded! She helped us to win the bid! As a result, she saved us hundreds of thousands of dollars (which means a cut to her commission) - so much so that we didn't even need to borrow more money as we had planned!

This experience truly impressed us! We knew all along that Cecily was a professional, talented, warm-hearted and hard-working agent. But what she did also showed her exceptional integrity and generosity.So in summary, Cecily has our utmost respect as a real estate agent, and most enthusiastic endorsement!" - Anonymous (residents in the Bay Area).

★★★★★
"Cecily helped me buy an investment property in Menlo Park back in 2010. I was very pleased about the process and the end result. The property had good cash flow from day one and has appreciated almost 200% since we bought it. Throughout the process, what impressed me most was Cecily's sincerity and experience.
First of all, she really puts her client's needs first when looking for a good property. I started to search for investment property in the Bay Area in early 2009. Many times, I thought I had found a good deal online and wanted her to make an offer for me. She would check the property in person for me and talk me out of it by detailing all the downsides. We waited almost one year before we bought the final house. I have met many pushy agents before - most of them wanted to close the deal as soon as possible.

Secondly, she offered extensive experience and effort that saved me lots of times. Often, by looking at the map alone, Cecily would tell me about the community, the historical price, etc. We had filtered out many houses just by discussion. For those that had a good location and price, she would check the houses first and arrange for me to go only when she thought it was worthwhile.

Lastly, she negotiated hard for me during the offer phase. She arranged a good inspector and followed up with the seller’s agent on every item on the inspection report (some of them resulted in rebates or discounts). She brought good experience to both me and the seller by negotiating with real numbers and hard facts. The deal closed without any glitch.

I can say with full confidence that you will find a good deal in the Bay Area if you have Cecily as your agent-:)" -Li F., Los Altos.

★★★★★
"Cecily’s knowledge of the housing market is remarkable, but more impressive is her ability to understand clients’ needs, sometimes better than we do. We had been browsing in the Los Altos area when a friend introduced Cecily. We had struggled between location, condition, size, and a tight budget. She took time to listen, clarified the current and future value of each item, and helped us understand our own priorities. I lost count of the houses we viewed with Cecily. When we considered settling for defects for a lower price, she would convince us to wait for a better opportunity. She cared about us finding the right home, not just about getting a commission. After the sale, Cecily continues to be engaged, helping us find architects and designers, responding to remodeling ideas and concerns about timelines and budget. Her optimism and opportunity-seeking mindset during uncertain times, her resourcefulness, and warm-hearted nature all make Cecily an amazing person to know and work with." - Rob S.

★★★★★
"If you're looking to find a relator who cares about you and your home investment before, during, and after the closing, then look no further than Ryan.

This is our second home purchase (first one in the Bay Area), and Ryan went above and beyond to make sure that we were supported throughout the entire process, even going as far to coordinate some home services prior to us moving in earlier this year. He still consistently checks in on us after 10 months (which is so reassuring and welcomed), and I'd recommend him 100%!" - Jesse & Shaowei, North Los Altos.

★★★★★
"A prior agent sold us a house without disclosing that it was next to a freeway (we were out of state). I wanted a property that fit our needs better. A friend recommended Cecily who suggested we learn about Palo Alto. After a year, Cecily found the perfect house.

We had a flexible budget and she could have advised us to offer the asking price. She didn’t. She analyzed the neighborhood and advised a price that required negotiation. It took three months, with Cecily handling all the offers, counter offers, falling apart and coming together again. At one point, the listing agent and seller stopped talking with each other. Cecily facilitated the deal by persuading the listing agent to re-open the dialogue.

Cecily works hard to the end. She is intelligent and sincere. She is a strong, win-win negotiator. After the deal closed, the listing agent recommended Cecily to another agent which helped seal a later deal. I recommend Cecily to anyone I know who is looking to buy or sell property." -Michelle, Palo Alto.

★★★★★
"Cecily helped us buy two houses in Palo Alto, both of which we loved and got a good deal. Throughout the house hunting process, Cecily helped us immensely, from understanding our goal to finding a house that best fit our need to negotiating a good deal. We trust her deeply and greatly appreciate her advice as our broker and friend. We'd like to highly recommend Cecily. She is an agent and a friend one could ever dream of." - Claire C., Old Palo Alto.

★★★★★
"Passionate, knowledgeable, considerate, hardworking, and well connected – as a real estate agent, one can't fail with all the above, and that's Cecily! We have had one sale and two purchases with Cecily since 2007. Cecily is skillful as both a listing agent and selling agent. When she listed our house for sale, there was a buyer who asked her to be their buyer’s agent. Cecily communicated the situation with us and suggested a solution. On the offer date, Cecily countered that buyer as well as other offers. That buyer didn’t come up with a higher price. We sold the house to another buyer with a different agent. We would never have known if Cecily hadn’t shared that with us. She really puts her clients’ needs above her own.

For our buying experience, I mentioned to Cecily back in 2001 that we wanted to move to Palo Alto and asked her to keep an eye out for us. Two months later, she managed to get us in the lottery for a new development. We lived in the beautiful townhome for 10 years before thinking about being even closer to the schools. I never realized bidding for a house could be such an intensive process. Cecily worked till after midnight to get us ready. She's so skilled at bidding and negotiation, and finally helped us win the owner's heart.

Cecily could easily have generated more commission by persuading us to sell our old house and buy a more expensive one. However, she advised that we purchase a home at a lower price while keeping the old house without sacrificing much in living standards. Now we have income generated from rental and value appreciation. An agent like Cecily is a hard-to-find gem nowadays. I would not choose to work with anyone else!" - Kitty & Dan, Palo Alto.