Andrea Swetland

Andrea helped us buy our first home in San Francisco during this very difficult housing market. My husband’s coworker referred us to Andrea. We actually met with several real estate agents before deciding to go with Andrea. Andrea is personable and professional. She was flexible in taking us around to see houses and getting us into see houses on non-​open house days. I have a very difficult work schedule, so that was essential for us being able to find a place. In addition, she referred us to a mortgage broker who was helped us get a good loan.
After we bought the house, the previous owner was supposed to give us a packet of information regarding appliances and the security system in the house. Andrea literally hounded his real estate agent for months trying to get us the information. We would have given up on the information, but Andrea kept working and pressuring until we received what had been promised.
We would definitely use Andrea again and would refer any friends to her who are looking for a home in San Francisco.

We have worked with Andrea twice, first to buy our first home in San Francisco and then to sell it 7 years later and buy a new house in Marin. Andrea is amazing to work with. She maintains a professional attitude offering expert knowledge and guidance while keeping the process fun and down to earth. She empowered us to get out there and see what we liked. She was never pushy or tried to talk us into a house. She was honest with us and excellent at giving us both sides of each situation weighing out the pros and cons so we could make the best choice. When it came time to purchase, she served as a top-​notch negotiator and kept our best interest in mind at all times. In such a crazy market, it was her expert skills and strong intuition that got us into our dream home. You simply cannot choose a better broker to work with!

In a word, Andrea is exceptional. She served as my agent for a condo purchase last year. Andrea has decades of experience in the field, and it showed during my interactions with her. For example, Andrea anticipated a potential obstacle with one lender I hoped to use – and lined up a backup just in case. As it turns out, I had to go with the backup. Andrea’s experience enabled the purchase to proceed. She is honest – pointing out subtle negatives rather than pushing for a quick sale. Andrea is well-​respected within her field. Although my purchase was nearly one year ago, I continue to regularly rely on her guidance. I will without a doubt use Andrea, and only Andrea, for any future real estate deals.

We had such an amazing experience working with Andrea finding the right home in San Francisco!
She is very friendly, professional, meticulous, thorough, and very knowledgeable about San Francisco neighborhoods, real estate, and the seasonality of the market. Throughout our experience, we never felt like we were working with an agent, but rather a friend who really cares about finding us the right home.
She also helped connect us with lenders via her network who would accommodate our special loan needs. I believe that is significant because having a lender whom your agent has personal connection and working experience with, makes all the difference in how confidently you can make non-​contingent offers and how smoothly escrow closes.
I’d highly recommend Andrea to any friend who’s looking to buy/​sell in SF. It was a pleasure working with her and I look forward to working with her in future.

Andrea was great to work with. I can be really anal about details and follow up but she had it covered before I bought the house. Of course, remember, she earns her money only if I buy the house. Also, after the sale, she was very generous and bought me home insurance for appliances for 1 year which I have used about three times so far.
What she didn’t do (which is a huge deal) was tell me about the Notification of Assessed Value form I would be receiving a few months after buying the house. This is the form where you can ask The City to lower your property tax because you overpaid for the house. I could have saved thousands of dollars had I known and understood what this form really meant. I had to go see a property tax lawyer (as I received 3 different property tax bills) and then I found out about it. Yes, I am anal and I do go over everything but The City also has a sneaky way of phrasing what this form really means.
Anyway, would I use her again, probably not as I have a bad taste in my mouth about this property tax adjustment I could have been granted for this first year. Apparently, I have four years to make a claim so my attorney will be trying next July. Remember, had I not seen this attorney I would never have found out.
This is an update to this review: I received a response from Andrea after she read this review who had told me it was the title company who is responsible for informing me about the Notification of Assessed Value form. She did say that she has contacted the title company to find out more and going forward she will let her clients know about this. That’s great that she has followed up and is conscientious and others will benefit but it doesn’t help me get the thousands of dollars I am out of pocket! I guess there’s nothing she can do about it now and that’s the reason I didn’t contact her about it directly. It would have only frustrated and upset me more as there really is nothing she can do at this stage. I ask myself the same question — would I work with her again… maybe. She was responsive, friendly, tenacious and professional.

Andrea is an amazing realtor and gave me lots of advice and insight about the current market in San Francisco. As I was gone from the area for few years and came back with a lot of surprises (prices went up!), she assured me that I could purchase a home in the city. She is very knowledgable about properties, what to look for and when to bid/​not bid. She is always available to answer my questions and tells me when to prepare. She handled the buying process so smoothly, that I didn’t feel pressured or stressed. Thanks to Andrea, I now finally have a home in San Francisco :-)

Andrea helped us sell our condo in the Outer Sunset back in Spring, 2014. My wife and I had moved to Southern California three years prior and participated in the sale (mostly) remotely. This placed the majority of the sales effort firmly on Andrea’s shoulders. In short, she handled the entire listing and sales process flawlessly.
Her friendliness, flexibility, and professionalism truly made selling our condo as low-​stress as I can imagine. Her ability to orchestrate critical condo preparation and cleaning tasks with our friends and family in The City was awesome. Her recommendations for vendors (e.g. staging, escrow) were excellent. She communicated with us clearly and regularly. Best of all, our condo sold quickly, with minimal fuss, and for more than the asking price.
Andrea even followed up months later to remind us about filing taxes for the sale of our property.
If you are looking for a super talented real estate professional who will give you accurate advice and get the job done, I wholeheartedly recommend Andrea Swetland.

If you’re looking for a real estate agent in San Francisco, Andrea is outstanding and highly recommended. Andrea represented us as buyers and we were very happy with the process and outcome. What sets Andrea apart is she’s extremely easy to work with — she’s not pushy, she listens well, and she has a very calming and professional presence. This is important with the craziness of San Francisco real estate. Andrea knows the San Francisco Bay Area market extremely well and her connections with other agents and service providers in the area were valuable for us. She had done business with the seller’s agent before, and knew the seller for the property we bought, which kept information flowing and moved us through the process quickly.
We considered a few other agents. One talked too much, another was pushy, and another had less years’ experience in the industry. Andrea was the clear winner. We valued her depth of experience which was able to navigate us through the disclosures, offer, and escrow processes. Andrea is very hard working and on the ball. She was highly accessible and responsive through the entire process answering emails, getting on calls, and meeting with us face to face practically ²⁴⁄₇.
Two separate friends of ours recommended Andrea, and about five minutes after our first conversation together, we knew ‘she was the one’. No wonder our friends recommended her so highly, and that’s why we now recommend her to our friends as well!

We found Andrea on the recommendation of our mortgage broker. We interviewed her and two other brokers and were impressed with her knowledge of the market and overall liked her energy. We ended up finding a home we wanted to bid on during the first week of our house hunt. We actually hadn’t settled on a broker yet and since we knew we had to make a bid in the next day or two my husband asked «who do you feel will help us get this house?» and my instincts said Andrea. We called her and told her we’d found a house we were interested in. She immediately went to research it and although she didn’t know the listing agent she did know the listing agent for a unit upstairs and was able to provide us immediate information.
When we walked through the house on our second time, with Andrea in tow, she kept mentioning the things we had stated in our initial meeting as being important to us. This house had some of them but not all of them and I appreciated that she was making sure we knew what we were getting into. When it came down to preparing an offer we had actually determined that we felt the value of the home was under the listing price and she didn’t bat an eye when we wanted to make an offer that was $ 100K below asking. She was willing to do whatever we needed her to do. I am sure there were other agents who would have rolled their eyes or walked away but she listened to our reasoning and wrote the offer the way we wanted it.
To make a long story short, in this crazy, SF market we ended up with a counter offer but eventually a signed agreement on the first and only house we bid on.
That’s when our story turned hairy — more to do with a difficult seller and a reluctant mortgage lender than the house itself. Through this situation Andrea kept us informed and worked behind the scenes to make this as low stress as possible for us. When our mortgage looked like it wasn’t going to work out and our mortgage broker was proposing banks we didn’t want to go with, Andrea called our attention to another type of mortgage lender. With this new lender we filed our papers, were approved 2 days later and funded in under two weeks. Andrea had heard about this option because she had built a relationship with the agent of the buyer’s of the upstairs unit (this was a 2 unit condo with both units on the market at the same time) and that agent has this lead. I have no doubt in my mind if Andrea hadn’t built this relationship, we wouldn’t be living in our new home now.
I can wholeheartedly recommend Andrea as a great real estate agent. This market is horrible to buy in and she was able to make the process as painless as possible and get us our dream home.

Andrea is a great agent. Very efficient. We have worked with her for 10 years on bought the purchase side and the selling side of our transactions in San Francisco. We completed our last transaction in December 2014. All went very smoothly. She is very knowledgeable, efficient and responsive. She stays in touch and makes sure she is attentive to our needs.

Andrea made the entire home buying process a breeze! Even in this highly competitive market she was able to negotiate a deal UNDER asking. She connected us with her amazing mortgage broker as well as other professionals that helped us out tremendously. We were even able to close escrow a few days early thanks to Andrea! I would highly recommend her to anyone selling or buying a home in SF

Andrea is a great agent that we would recommend hands-​down. She is smart, energetic, seasoned, tenacious and positive. We first worked with Andrea in 2012 and were under a short deadline to find a house prior to having a baby. We decided to stop looking and Andrea was fine with that. She happily picked up the search again with us when we called her again in 2014. She sees the bigger picture and built a longer-​term relationship with us. I now think of Andrea as a friend.
My husband and I are picky and were on a budget – we weren’t the easiest clients, but Andrea never batted an eye at any of our requests. She essentially took the stress out of buying a house. I trust Andrea fully, and relied on her to navigate us through the process. The first house that we made an offer on, we won. I know this wouldn’t have happened without Andrea. She’s a pleasure to work with and I look forward to working with her in the future.

Andrea is wonderful!
Andrea just helped me and my husband buy our first home in SF. After talking with several real estate agents over the phone, Andrea was a breath of fresh air to speak with. She made us feel comfortable right away. She came to our home for our initial meeting and sat with us at our kitchen table while answering every question that we had.
She is always so quick to respond to our calls and emails, and questions and extremely knowledgeable about the ins and outs of the market.
Andrea helped us each step of the way to find our home and we are so happy!

One word: Professional
Andrea helped us buy our condo in San Francisco in 2008 and it was incredibly smooth and buttoned up.
Now, 2013– moving to Orange County, offer on a house but contingent on selling the condo and the people we’re buying the house from in OC have a contingent offer on a house in Austin!!! Could it get more complicated?!
Andrea was amazing and coached us all the way to success even when the odds were starting to stack against us. She even reviewed all SoCal documents and found errors our other real estate agent didn’t catch!
If you’re going to buy straight up or have a complicated or insane scenario, she’s your gal. She’ll keep you informed every step of the way, comfort your worries in the wee hours of the night when you just thought of something and need advice and make things happen as she knows everyone in the business related to real estate. I like her so much she came to my baby shower folks. Seriously. Hire her.
Thank you Andrea!

Andrea is one of the best real estate agents we have worked with. She is very passionate at what she does and she does it well. My fiancé has started looking for a house in SF about 10 months ago. We knew it would be very challenging because of our situation. Andrea was very patient; she went through every possible scenarios and came up with different strategies. In this time span, we have gone through over hundred open houses; bid on probably twenty different houses or condos. It was exhausting, and we wanted to give up many times. It was Andrea’s positive attitude and her promise of finding us the perfect house, we kept on looking. We finally won the bid against twenty other bidders and are thrilled with the house we bought. It wouldn’t have been possible without Andrea’s help! Through the whole experience, we always felt Andrea was on our side, like she was finding the place for herself. We want to recommend her to everyone we know, and will definitely ask for her help again if we ever look for a new place in the future.

We found out in December 2012 that we were going to be kicked out of our rental the following year, just as the San Francisco market exploded into total insanity again. My sister recommended Andrea as an agent when we started looking to buy a place and finally escape the cycle of losing rentals to landlords eager to cash out. Back when the San Francisco housing market was less insane, Andrea had successfully negotiated the price of my sister’s condo down, twice, before she closed. About a week after we met Andrea, I was run over by a distracted driver and we had to give up looking for several months while I recovered enough to walk again, with housing prices ballooning up every week. When we were able finally start looking at real estate again, we were horrified at how much more difficult the market had gotten for buyers and we were also running out of time. Worse, I was still disabled, which limited the areas and types of units where we could live (no 3^rd floor walkups).
We are lucky that we had Andrea helping us through the process of buying a home. When we met she came to visit our current rental to see how we lived and learn what we wanted. Ultimately we looked at several places and bid on three, and the third time we won. As depressing as it was for us to lose the first two times, we have friends who bid on over a dozen places. Each time we bid, thanks to Andrea’s coaching and knowledge of the market, we made offers that put us in the top three. The place that we bought, although it cost way more than we’d hoped to spend when we started looking the year before (not Andrea’s fault, but the terrifying 2013 San Francisco market), was on the street we had most hoped to live and exactly the kind of place that we had originally told her we wanted – and the nicest of the three places we’d tried to buy.
We feel incredibly fortunate and we know that we would not have been successful if we had not had her advice. We were first-​time buyers and needed a fair bit of hand-​holding, and she is very patient about that (plus trying to buy in this market makes everyone pretty crazy almost immediately). She suggested changes to our offers that we would not have even considered, as well as providing different potential numbers we could bid (long shot, most likely, and aggressive) that let us know the likely outcome of an offer even before we made it (we learned to go with «aggressive»). Andrea knows a lot of the agents working in the city and they all seem to like her; she promised them that we’d make any transaction involving us smooth, and that promise made our offers look better too. Her knowledge of the San Francisco market is incredible.
Real estate is a weird business – nearly anyone can call themselves an agent, hang out a shingle, and make the same percentage on any sale as someone who actually knows what they’re doing. And in a less terrifying market than San Francisco the difference between an okay agent and a great agent may not be particularly significant. But in this market it seems like only a stroke of good fortune or an actual fortune could make you a successful buyer without a great agent. We have friends who worked with other agents who began looking to buy a place before we did, and yet despite the fact that we had to take several months off we are, as yet, the first ones who actually succeeded in getting a place. After going through this process my sense is that if you want to actually buy a place to live, instead of making bids and losing out over and over again, Andrea is your agent.

My wife and I had been looking on and off for places for a little over a year and started seriously looking when we wandered into a TIC in the panhandle area. The sale for this place (out of our range but it was awesome so we looked anyway) was being handled by Andrea.
We had been to a few open houses before, and while we had met a few good realtors and a few not-​so-​good ones, none of them really clicked with us. In about 10 minutes of talking to her, Andrea was the one that had us both turn to each other to say «I think we should go with her, she knows what she’s talking about». We said this after we left, though, not in front of her. That would be weird.
After looking seriously for just a few months, a place happened on the market that we both loved and thought would be a great starter flat. Long story short, PURELY because Andrea knows what she’s doing and what she’s about, we got the place. She was consistently up to date with all her information, talked easily to the other realtors, great to work with, and so impressed the other parties involved that they convinced their clients that we would be the quickest and most trouble-​free sell. Which we were. Thanks to Andrea.
Eventually, when we sell this place, there is no doubt in my mind we’ll be going back to her.

Long term relationship.
We had been seeing each other for over six years. She wanted to take things further. But I was afraid of commitment.
Something was always off. Vibe. Intimacy. Aesthetics. Each time it felt forced. Worried she was going to give up on me. On us.
Then it happened. Love at first sight. Sparks flew. Priorities shifted. It was finally time and we both knew it.
This is my first Unilocal as a San Francisco homeowner. The city I love is just outside my window. The dream has become a reality.
Thanks start and end with Andrea. We met when she helped my former roommate find a place with his new wife. I looked briefly but wasn’t ready on many levels.
Over the next six years we stayed in touch. She sent me listings and we went on the occasional tour. And she waited. Patiently.
With my landlord giving me notice he was moving back in it was time to reconsider. Prices and interest rates were down. I was qualified. It was time.
She found the perfect place. Was tenacious, thorough and spirited throughout the exhausting process. Emails. Phone calls. Coffee. Never felt alone.
There were euphoric highs and emotionally shattering lows. She was there every step of the way. When we finally closed it was a victory like no other. Andrea was the first person I wanted to hug. And say thank you.
Our relationship is over now but I’ll carry fond memories of our time together. Who knows? One day we might be back together. I’d take her back any day.
P. S. There was briefly a third wheel. Manuel and his highly recommended team. Painting. Fixtures. Cleaning. Building. Creating. They did an excellent job getting my place move in ready.

Andrea was a pleasure to work with. She knows San Francisco inside-​out and quickly got an idea of what I was looking for. Her recommendations were spot-​on and her network within the real estate community helped us greatly. I still have not made a final purchasing decision but will not go to anyone other than Andrea. I was referred to her by a colleague whom she matched with a beautiful home on Jackson Square. I am happy to give her my strongest endorsement and will recommend her to any friends looking to purchase a home in the Bay Area.

Andrea recently helped us buyer a fixer house in Noe/​Glen Park after a multi year search. That sort of property typically comes with extra challenges such as competition and short timelines, need to assess maintenance problems, and/​or tenant occupancies. One needs a good, experienced and connected realtor for such things. Andrea has the experience and the always-​on attitude necessary to get complex deals completed favorable for the client with a minimum of hassle.