On an absolutely spectacular New Year’s Day in Marin County, 65 degrees and sunny, I started the New Year off with a bike ride over Mt. Tamalpais early this morning. Admittedly off the topic of real estate, but just last night at a party, I had a long conversation with a friend about how I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. Riding along West Ridgecrest, looking down on Stinson Beach and the Pacific Ocean over 2000 feet below, made me realize even more strongly how incredible this place is. I’ve done that ride dozens of times, and it never ceases to amaze me, especially since I can do the whole ride from my front door in less than two and a half hours.

When I got back home, on the front page of the Marin Independent Journal, ABOVE THE FOLD, was the headline, “Psychics Like Marin’s Energy for 2007.” Even my daughter, a freshman at UCLA and home on break, looked at it and said, “Only in Marin County would psychics and astrologists make the front page of the newspaper.”
She’s right, too. This is an Only In Marin story, and I wouldn’t live anywhere else if you paid me. And I think the psychics are right too.

They say it’s easy to sell what you love, and selling real estate here isn’t always easy, but is always something I believe in.

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Originally on the market for $24.5  million, the price was reduced to $21 million over the last few years.

Unfortunately for Andre, he took a beating on this one. He purchased the property for $23 million in 2001.

I don’t know him personally, but he is, by all reports, an all around great guy. My friend Bryan Flannery, of Bryan’s Fine Foods in Corte Madera, regularly ships steaks to Andre at his new home in Las Vegas, and says he is absolutely one of the nicest people he’s ever met, and a great father too. No attitude, down to earth, extremely polite and friendly. Other people who run into him in Tiburon always agree.

You hate to see a nice guy like that take a beating like that, but on the other hand, it sounds like he can probably afford it also.

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I can’t reveal names or prices, but it was a very unique property. Little did we know how unique.

I received a call at 7:30 Monday night saying the seller wanted to counter us at $100,000 over asking, because they had another offer at that price but our terms were better. I called my client; he said yes; I called back and said, “We have a deal.”

“Well not yet,” said the other agent. “The other party just called, and they’ve offered another $40,000, and they’re driving over here to sign something now.”

I called my client again, told him that if he wanted this we had to get in the car immediately and drive to the listing agent’s office.

As we’re driving through the first big rainstorm of the year to get there, I called the agent, and told her we’d raise the stakes. After we talked for a while, she said, “The only fair way to do this is to have both parties submit one more offer, and we’ll take the best one.”

We sat in the conference room, and saw the other group down the hall. Believe me, you don’t know what pressure is until you’re sitting with your client, it’s late, everyone’s exhausted, and you’re trying to figure out how much higher the other party will go, after they’ve already gone up $150,000. And you have too.

My client wanted the house. Badly. But no one wants to pay too much, and at some point, it’s just a house. So how much higher do you go?

We upped the ante another $120,000. I don’t remember how many times we said “this is insane” as we filled out the paperwork. We knew it was insane, but we thought it would do it.

However, we weren’t insane enough. The other party was crazier, and wanted it more. I don’t know by how much, but they’re now in contract.

Only in Marin.

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At Terra Linda High School, the idea of the new club is causing anything but feelings of peace and understanding. And that’s what makes it an “Only In Marin” moment. You’d expect parents in Marin, one of the birthplaces of New Age spirituality, to LOVE the idea of a TM club in high school.

But in Marin, some of the parents were down this track years ago, and believe it is a cult. In other words, been there, done that, got the de-programming t-shirt.
I do a yoga class a couple of days a week that begins with a few minutes of meditation, but so far, I haven’t felt the need to participate in a mass marriage ceremony or to turn my escrow checks over to Ananda, the teacher.

I’ll let you know if that changes.

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