Rainmaker Properties - Improving Lives with Silicon Valley Real Estate

By putting your confidence and trust in Rainmaker Properties, you help us give 10% of our income to support charitable causes, education, the arts, social services, and volunteerism. As we are half way through the 2008 business year, we’ve already raised over $50,000 for our communities.

Below are a few of the organizations that we support. As we serve more clients and have the opportunities to serve more charities, I’ll add to the list…

Abundant Life Christian Fellowship
Hidden Villa
China Sichuan Earthquake Relief Fund

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Many of the agents in Silicon Valley do just about the same thing. They send fliers to your home and sometimes e-mails to your in-box, but glossy fliers or flashy e-mails tell you nothing about their experience or ability to serve their clients.

How do you choose a reliable real estate agent to represent your best interests?

Check out the strength of their network, which speaks volumes about how well they meet their clients’ needs. Start with their blog—if they even have one. As you read, ask yourself whether it’s written by someone who’s smart and dedicated to helping people just like you buy or sell a home. If an agent contributes time to writing a blog, then it may show their experience and commitment to their clients and the industry.

Next, check out testimonial and social media Web sites. Many of these sites are comprised of unsolicited testimonials or detailed experiences working with a particular person. Some of these site may include Yelp or LinkedIn. I’m humbled that so many of my clients value my services and proactively recommend me to their friends, family, and even strangers—especially since I work entirely by referral only.

One of the best social networking sites I’ve been using is Facebook.
It’s a great way to get back in touch and keep in contact with friends and family members. I was able to find a few friend half way around the world that I hadn’t been in touch with for over a decade. I’ve also conducted business through Facebook.

For example, after one of my clients presented an offer on a property, I hit radio silence. I couldn’t get feedback from the listing agent. So I did a title search to identify the property owner and sent the
owner a message through Facebook to confirm that my client’s offer had been received. The result was a signed contract. (I understand that there’s a reason for buyers and sellers to hire agents and I don’t recommend contacting the other agent’s client, but their are times when proactive out-of-the-box action is required.)

It’s one thing to read a resume, but networking sites give you a much fuller picture of who a person is. Look me up and let me know what you think.

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You won’t find ads about our company on billboards or rolling by on buses, nor will you find local mailboxes stuffed with postcards from Rainmaker Properties.

Our approach to real estate is different from our competitors. We build our business by serving our clients and working by referral. That means we build long-term relationships with every seller and buyer we’re fortunate enough to call clients, and we treasure our “raving fans” and the word-of-mouth marketing they provide.

I often use a taxi cab metaphor to describe how we operate.

You hail a cab to get from downtown to the airport. The cab picks you up, you pay the driver and off he goes. The service is likely fine. It delivers you to your destination. Yet it’s impersonal, you’ll likely never get the same driver twice and you’re forgotten as quickly as you exit the cab as the driver rushes off to find the next fare.

The limo driver, however, has a vested interest in you. The company wants to build a long-term relationship so you’ll always call it for your airport runs, for instance. It keeps track of your preferences and knows where to pick you up, what your favorite kind of car is, whether you like a snack on the ride over and your preferred airline. You merely make a call and say your pick-up time and the limo company appears and delivers you to your destination. It’s a smooth, easy process.

Our limo approach to real estate delivers similarly personalized service. For buyers, we take the time to understand your needs, schedule and budget and make sure we find the ideal property.

For sellers, it means we sell your home for the very best terms possible. Moreover, we have a large, qualified buyer pool to draw from because we’re constantly building relationships with people seeking homes. Thus, our marketing dollars are spent not on postcards and other fuzzy methods to get your home sold but by tapping our existing relationships and showing exactly how your property stands out from the competition.

We work not only by word-of-mouth, but we also tap social network sites, such as Yelp, LinkedIn and Facebook, to constantly broaden our reach and reputation, and build new relationships with the most qualified prospects.

Moreover, our relationships don’t end with the completion of a transaction. We provide services on an ongoing basis by offering clients advice, business and vendor referrals, and client appreciation events and perks. For instance, if you need a painting contractor, an auto mechanic or a handyman, we can refer you to the best people and companies in town.

Yet unlike the limo company that charges more than the taxi, with us, you get top-flight service and a full array of expertise with no extra costs.

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With each sale, we’re making a difference in others’ lives.

I’ve always believed in living my Christian faith, so when I started in the real estate business, I began to tithe 10 percent of my earnings to my church. It was a way to give back to the community and bless someone with my blessings. It was difficult in the beginning. Now it’s simply a part of who I am.

Nothing changed when I opened my own company. When I launched Rainmaker Properties, I incorporated that commitment to my community into the company’s mission. I and every agent who signs on with my company donate 10 percent of every commission to the local charity or nonprofit organization of the client’s choice. To date, we’ve donated $50,000 to various charitable organizations, including America’s Second Harvest food bank.

Our charitable mission is a blessing to the communities we work in, but it also has a side benefit I hadn’t anticipated. When I got into the real estate business, it felt as though too many agents were focused only on money. That type of agent will jump from company to company with no commitment to the firm or its clients. I didn’t intend it, but our pledge to give back has turned out to be a good way to identify the principles of the agents I’m considering bringing on board and weed out those who don’t share my value system. That’s critical because it’s only through a shared value system that I can be sure that every client will get the level of personal service and respect I’ve promised.

I don’t make a fortune in this business, but I’m blessed enough to make a good living. I’m committed to passing my blessings onto others, and so is every agent at my firm. It’s who we are.

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Welcome the Rainmaker Properties blog.

We’re a Palo Alto, California-based boutique residential brokerage company that specializes in marketing, selling, buying and managing residential real estate in the Silicon Valley Bay Area.

I’m Alex Wang, broker-owner of Rainmaker Properties, and I’m a second-generation REALTOR®. Since the team’s founding in 1999, Rainmaker Properties has aimed to offer clients not only a way to sell and buy homes, but to offer a stable, reliable source of real estate knowledge and service, and a team of trustworthy real estate practitioners and staff members.

Founded as a faith-centered real estate company with a “servant-style attitude”, we strive to adhere to the fundamental Golden Rule to “treat others as you would like to be treated.” On a day-to-day basis that means we’ll get to know you and understand your requirements and deliver on your real estate needs, no matter how much effort it takes.

And we want our blessings—our clients and successes—to also be someone else’s blessing. Therefore, we donate ten cents of every dollar we earn to various charitable groups and organizations.

In this blog, I and the rest of the Rainmaker real estate team share real-world real estate experiences with you and from those experiences provide insight into how to understand and make educated decisions in this ever-changing Silicon Valley real estate market.

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