Hanna Kerns – Red Oak Realty

We feel very lucky to have been connected with Hanna. She is a charming, experienced, and well-​connected realtor who went above and beyond to help us close on our first house in Oakland. We had specific requirements, within a tight time frame, in a crazy competitive market, and Hanna went the extra mile for us. Now that we’ve closed, we still tap Hanna for resources and advice. She is very knowledgeable about the market and provided us with sound advice in territory we knew nothing about. We look forward to maintaining a friendship with Hanna and working with her again in the future.

Having just closed escrow on our first home a couple weeks ago, my wife and I consider ourselves very lucky to have worked with Hanna as our buying agent. We entered the East Bay market completely inexperienced and in an extremely competitive environment, yet Hanna was eager to take us on as clients and quickly impressed us with her professionalism, resourcefulness, and determined attitude. She made it clear from our first meeting that she would not only be an effective representative for us in presenting and negotiating our offers, but a helpful and informative teacher for us as we learned about the housing market and prepared ourselves to become homeowners for the first time. She was right in both cases, navigating both roles with expertise and care, while fostering a genuine sense of teamwork throughout the entire process.
Hanna proved to be incredibly valuable in all facets of our home buying experience — recommending and quickly bringing us up to speed on different cities and neighborhoods, presenting us with off-​market listings and limited opportunities through her network of real estate colleagues and friends, referring us to her established and reliable pool of inspectors and tradesmen, and helping us assemble a well-​organized team to guide us through the final stages of purchase and escrow. She has a genuine appreciation for the Bay Area and is very knowledgable about all parts of the East Bay. More importantly, if she doesn’t have the information or answer she is honest about it and will help you find it.
Throughout our search she demonstrated an ability to adapt to the market, but also to her clients, as we shifted the location of our focus midway through our search, and in one particular instance pulled our offer that had been accepted (thankfully, she had included an inspection contingency when others agents might not have). She never flinched, always advised us on our decisions but left them up to us, and was supportive from start to finish. Lastly, she was always extremely responsive, thorough and easy to communicate with via phone, text, and email.
We’re thrilled to be moving into our first home and are very confident we got the right house for us. This is in large part to all of Hanna’s efforts, so we couldn’t recommend her more highly!

Hanna took every opportunity to go above and beyond for us over ten months of searching for our first home in a very tough market. At our first meeting, Hanna took two hours out of her Sunday evening to meet with us, ask us about our dream home, our concessions and deal breakers, and generally get to know us so that she could be our best advocate.
Hanna was with us every step of the way, accommodating our schedules to see houses mid-​week and after work when necessary, thinking creatively about how to make our offers more competitive (besides just raising the price), and flagging concerns about a house or a contract term that we would have missed. Hanna seems to know everyone — listing agents, lenders, contractors, inspectors — and she reached out to her friends and colleagues to help us book short notice inspections and get feedback on our offers. Whenever we lost an offer, Hanna was there with encouragement and more ideas for the next round. She kept telling us that in this market, we needed to keep our eye out for poor marketing, and she was right! We got into contract for a house we love, in a neighborhood we love (and never thought we could afford), thanks to her expert eye. Then seller delayed COE with little notice, and Hanna continued to be our tireless advocate during a stressful three weeks of negotiations with seller’s agent. With Hanna’s help, we finally got to close of escrow and move-​in.
We can’t say enough about the fantastic service we’ve received from Hanna and her team at Red Oak, and we’ll definitely be recommending Hanna to everyone we know.

Here’s the thing that sets Hanna apart from other realtors: she is a REAL PERSON.
What ever do I mean by that? Here’s what I mean by that.
She has an actual personality and sense of humor. There is more to Hanna than just BUYING (and/​or SELLING). In short you can TRUST her because of how genuine she is.
We went through a very long and protracted negotiation process. She hung with us the entire time, and provided excellent counsel throughout. She got tough (with the seller’s agent) when needed, and talked us back off the ledge more than once.
In short, Hanna is awesome. We would recommend her to anyone.
Which reminds me, we need to have her over for a drink …

Hanna was a great agent to work with when we decided to buy our first home in Oakland in fall 2014. She is incredibly easy to reach and quick to respond — phone, text, email, and in person, whatever was most convenient for us. We were impressed with her knowledge of the different neighborhoods, and her ability to manage tons of coordination with the listing agent, escrow people, and others once our offer was accepted. She’s continued to be a great source of help and information as we get to know our new neighborhood. Would definitely recommend Hanna to anyone looking for a new home in the area.

This lady is a rock star.
Hanna was recommended to me by another realtor, one of whom several different friends had spoken highly, but who had a conflicting commitment. Initially, I was sorry to have missed working with that first recommendation, but I cannot now imagine having gotten a better realtor. As a first-​time homebuyer, I found the process to be terrifying, and can’t imagine having navigated it without a smart, ethical, highly competent, and occasionally-​tactically-​ferocious agent.
From the start, she actually listened to me, and understood what I wanted, and where I was and was not willing to compromise. When I fell in love with a run-​down 1906 cottage — after having declared, very positively, «No fixer-​uppers» (famous last words) — and I asked her for her assessment of whether this house might be do-​able, with some work, she gave an intelligent eyeball assessment of the variety of problems I might be taking on (foundation, electric, etc.), right on the spot, and then later found a home inspector (Brian Cogley) who did a phenomenal job, so that I knew what I was letting myself in for.
When it turned out that the seller (who was in Beijing for most of the transaction) regarded negotiating as an intolerable imposition, and that the seller’s agent wasn’t familiar with the East Bay market, Hanna essentially took over all the heavy lifting in the deal. After delaying her decision for a month, the seller turned down my first bid. I was mopey, but reasonable, and told Hanna that I was still interested, but that it didn’t make sense to invest any more time in this house. Nonetheless, she kept in touch with the seller’s agent, such that we were Right There when the first bidder bailed.
After this, Hanna kept on top of an absolutely insane process, getting contractor bids to confirm that I was going to be able to afford the minimum necessary repairs, navigating an appraiser who decided, in the middle of the appraisal, that they wanted the gas turned on, and, when World’s Most Difficult Seller turned out to have, oh, possibly not depicted the exact status of the sewer lateral with optimal accuracy — and the clause obligating her to do so was among the verbiage we jettisoned, in hopes of getting her to sign the second bid — Hanna somehow got *this* seller to make a substantial credit towards closing costs for same.
(And, at no time in the long slog from «It’ll be a miracle if this works out», to «When do you want the keys?», did Hanna ever utter a peep that the most paranoid client could have interpreted as, «Are you sure you couldn’t be just as happy with a place with a higher list price and a seller who isn’t nuts?»)
I now have the keys, for a run-​down Edwardian that I’m crazy about, and it would not have happened without her. Hanna’s the best.

I was a client of Hanna’s during the Spring/​Summer of 2012. I was simultaneously in the process of selling my house while looking for a new one which is complicated enough, compounded that I was looking for a fantastic place in the Bay under $ 275K! Hanna was consistently patient and available to show me whatever house I was interested in, no matter how random or wacky the property was. She even went through all the trouble of helping me place a bid only to have me turn around and withdraw it! She also has a keen eye for things about a property that might end up costing a lot of money — like tiny bamboo coming up around a yard, cracks in a foundation, uneven floors — and does not get fooled by cosmetic makeovers that sometimes hide the real damage!
She never once made me feel inferior for not understanding ‘the process’ and instead repeatedly explained everything to me, and assured me that everything would work out, which it did. In the end I put my faith in her and underbid (yikes!) on a property in Alameda — which I got! She definitely knows the market, and doesn’t put any pressure on the client to do anything they are wary of doing.
I highly recommend her!

Hanna is superb at what she does. Our first outing with her, she demonstrated her extremely in-​depth knowledge of building structures, pointing out things I would have had no idea to even look for, with her keen eye. She listens to everything you say and files it away into her memory banks, so when that unique listing with a tropical greenhouse pops up, she is the first to send it to you. Nothing gets past her. If she is being quiet, you know she is just recording every detail and evaluating it in her mind’s eye.
Because she is extremely well connected in the real-​estate world, she also let us know about properties that weren’t even listed yet and she has taken the time to educate us on real-​estate market trends and predictions, which has been very helpful (we no longer feel like noobs!). She has an in depth knowledge of East Bay neighborhoods and on our drives around, she always makes sure to point out sites of interest, or stop to get a cappuccino, to help familiarize us with the different neighborhoods and their unique vibe. She has given us our fair share of homework, which is empowering and also gives us a much more active role in the process and arms us with information that others may not have.
On numerous occasions she has gone way beyond the call of duty to get things done for us, such as submitting an after-​hours offer for us, picking us up at BART stations, going with us to get zoning and permit documents at the City, and basically just predicting anything that could go wrong and having a plan already in place for us. I honestly don’t know when she even finds time to sleep!
Hanna has been incredibly honest with us, almost to a fault. We thought we found a great house, but our walk-​through with her showed some major costly repairs and things that weren’t fully outlined in the disclosures. I feel that she truly wants us to find our dream house, and she doesn’t mind how long that takes, but when the pressure is on, she’ll sprint to get things done.
On top of all of this, she has almost a 6^th sense for pricing, and we have been the winning bidder in both properties we have pursued. Her negotiation skills are honed to a sharp point. She knows when to stall and when to go all in. Unfortunately, and at no fault of hers, neither of our winning bids worked out, so we are still on the hunt. And while one of those properties was our dream home, and was a big disappointment for all parties involved, Hanna remains optimistic and is still putting up with us! Not only is she a realtor, but I dare-​say she has helped keep relationships together, with her level-​headed but compassionate manner.
After all we’ve been through, I can’t imagine going with another realtor. I would recommend her to anyone looking for property in the Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda area. You will not find someone with more passion and drive than Hanna. Plus, she is just a super cool woman, and I’d feel as comfortable referring her to some Burning Man artsy folks looking for a live-​work space as I would referring her to an upscale family in Piedmont.
I only five 5 stars to businesses and individuals that really deserve it, and if I could, I’d say «this one goes to eleven».

Hanna is an excellent realtor. She went above and beyond the call of duty.
I was pursuing a «problematic» listing, and she knew exactly what to do at every juncture of difficulty.
She helped me with the city, with the tax office, the IRS, the seller and her agent, etc. Every time we reached an obstacle, Hanna swept in and had the solutions to fix it and move the deal along.
As a first time buyer I was comforted and encouraged by all that Hanna brought to the table.
I found an amazing property and did not give up, thanks to my realtor.
I would highly recommend Hanna to anyone serious about making a great home purchase. She delivers!

Hanna did a phenomenal job guiding me through the purchase of my first home. She prepared me for every component, from submitting the offer all the way through to close. There were no surprises — I knew exactly what was coming down the pipeline. I purchased a fixer upper, and Hanna provided excellent referrals for every potential project the property would need to undergo. I was able to get numerous bids during my inspection contingency period, and obtained a great deal of knowledge about the property as a result. Throughout it all, Hanna was extremely accommodating, reliable, responsive and helpful.
Hanna really knows her stuff. She managed action items and deadlines like a pro. Her organization was superb. I could not be more impressed with her professionalism and industry knowledge. Best of all, she was always patient, collaborative, encouraging, and very, very supportive. She educated me, advised me, and calmed me down when I got nervous. Hanna is not only a fantastic agent; she’s an all around awesome person to work with. I cannot imagine going through this process with anyone else. She made what could have been a stressful endeavor into an enjoyable and painless experience!