Debbie Wilhelm – Coldwell Banker

We had the pleasure of having Debbie as our agent when looking for a house. We were nervous about looking for house in the Bay Area. But Debbie was EXTREMELY patient and thorough with us. But more importantly, she was honest. She wanted us to find the best house and didn’t hesitate to tell us that she didn’t like a house that we liked. That was very refreshing. We knew that she was looking out for us.
Overall, it was a very pleasant experience. Again, it was daunting, but she made everything as simple as she can for us. Highest recommendation.

We were referred to Debbie when looking for a realtor to buy our first home in the mid-​Peninsula. She committed by email to terms with us and ultimately failed to hold up her end of the deal (which she claimed was an honest mistake) and as a result profited directly at our expense. She effectively said it was our fault for not keeping her updated throughout our purchase process when we were 1^st-​time buyers and were left on our own to figure out how to complete the process– I guess I assumed she would take extra care for us knowing it was our 1^st purchase. Instead, she never followed up.
Honest mistake or not, she ultimately didn’t hold up her end of an arrangement and had us deal with the CB San Mateo branch manager Chuck who backed her up by yelling at us on the phone that it was indeed our fault and explained the legalese of why they were not responsible and pointed us to the other parties in the transaction to try to resolve it for ourselves.
She might be a good realtor if you’re a certain kind of client but she screwed us over on our purchase. If you’re looking for integrity/​competence/​client-​friendliness, I’m pretty sure you can literally pick any realtor in the area and do better than we did. Contact me if you want to see the email threads I have with her and Chuck for proof as I’m happy to share more details so you can judge for yourself.

If you want an edge on the Peninsula Housing Market, you want Debbie! We used her for the purchase of our two homes in Belmont and also to sell our home. In such a competitive market, you need someone like Debbie who knows everything about the Peninsula market, especially Belmont!

Debbie is absolutely our rock star! She is a true joy and fun to work with and most importantly, she delivers 5 star results!
For us first time home buyers and new comers to the bay area, Debbie provided us invaluable local knowledge about markets, neighborhoods and all the way down to streets. She listens and communicates really well and always stay focused on our real needs. The result — After 4 months house hunting, we got our 1^st offer accepted and now we are enjoying this great home in the great neighborhood which we would otherwise have missed if not Debbie. Here are a few things I would like to highlight our experience with her.
1. She listens and truly understands her clients — This is supper important. After seeing houses after houses, we kinda of lost sight of our initial needs. Debbie is the one who kept us stay focused on what we really want. She actually understands our needs better than we do.
2. She has been our trusted partner through the entire home purchasing process. She has never been pushy on anything. She is honest and always put herself in us buyers’ shoes. She even talked us out of some potential opportunities that we wanted to jump on. Now looking back, I am so glad that we followed her suggestion.
3. She is well connected in the real-​estate community and she seems to know everyone and respected by many of her peers.
4. She is super responsive! We felt she was always there for us whenever we needed help day in day out.
5. Her determination is an invaluable asset of her, which ultimately pulled the trigger, made a right decision at the right time.
I can’t say enough great things about Debbie. If you are thinking about working with her or are already working with her, your dream house will be just around the corner… I would recommend her to anyone! Thank you Debbie!

Debbie is an excellent real estate agent! She was extremely patient with us, a great negotiator, and found us a beautiful home that met all our needs and expectations. I highly recommend working with her and we’ll work with her again!

Debbie helped us buy our fantastic new home in Belmont. She supported us throughout the whole process until the deal was finalized. Our experience working with Debbie was wonderful, as she’s extremely knowledgeable and experienced and knows exactly what she’s doing. She was always very responsive and took care of any questions and tasks right away, which was extremely important for us as we were living abroad during the buying process. We had a complex negotiation deal and she stuck with us until the end. She also helped us find great new renters for a short term rental, which was not easy. She gets the job done in a very professional manner. She listened to our needs very well. We would definitely use Debbie again the next time we need to sell our home! Thank you, Debbie, for a job well done.

We worked with Debbie and her team to purchase our home in San Carlos and it was a great experience. Debbie is so knowledgable about the Peninsula real estate landscape and she really guided us through the whole process. She really looked out for our best interest and in the end, we got the house that we wanted.
I fully trust Debbie and her advice and would recommend her to anyone looking to buy a house.

As home buyers, we benefited tremendously from Debbie’s knowledge, connections, and determination. We had a different agent. After one year’s looking with no success, we switched to Debbie. Within three months, Debbie helped us find our dream house. Debbie possesses the key characteristics of a successful real estate agent: well-​connected, easy to work with, patient, hard-​working, and knowledgeable. We had a wonderful home-​buying experience with Debbie and would recommend her with no hesitation.

These reviews of Debbie are so over the top that I cannot think of anything more to add. I have already given her business card to our neighbor who watched the transformation of our mom’s ‘70s house in Belmont into a modern, hi-​tech, tasteful, home perfect for the young, tech industry couple who fit the right demographic to make a cash offer $ 200,000 over asking price in less than a week.
Since our house needed a complete remodel plus some structural remediation, my wife and I were concerned about finding the right construction crew. We interviewed several companies who’s bids scared us away. We interviewed several realtors who seemed egger to sell it as-​is for a quick commission. They told us it would take at least 6 to 8 months to complete if we could even find a contractor who wasn’t already busy.
Then we found Debbie Wilhelm and her incredible crew. In 4 months, at half the cost, our dog of a house blossomed into one of the most beautiful homes on our block to the amazement of our neighbors. Our water-​intensive ivy and grass landscaping was transformed into a designer, low-​water use, work of art! Her flooring crew ripped out the lime-​green, shag, wall-​to-​wall carpeting, fixed all the floor squeaks, and installed stunning, real oak floors throughout.
Her interior crew ripped out the dark, old kitchen and installed a gorgeous, high-​end, tasteful centerpiece of the new home. Out came the tacky, fiberglass shower and tub units, and completed two, totally updated modern baths with the coolest fixtures ever. Her stager was extraordinarily au-​currant and the website Debbie created for our home was the best that we and our friends had ever seen before.
Best of all, Debbie is a warm, friendly, professional anyone would like as a personal friend. We will always cherish our days working together with Debbie and her wonderful team of experts. Rudi and Linda.

Debbie was both our buying agent when we bought our house and our selling agent when we sold our house 7 years later. We couldn’t be happier with her services. She lined up all the inspection for us and negotiated very hard to bring the price down when we bought the house.
When we sold the house 7 years later to move to a bigger place, she told us what we needed to do to get top dollars for the house and helped us find contractors to do the work. She was so thorough and detail oriented that she even helped us pick a paint color which turned out to be a really good choice.
She is very knowledgeable, and so energetic and hard-​working, she inspires confidence in all her clients!

Debbie is a fantastic realtor who is very experienced! I’m so glad I chose her to sell my condo because she always kept me informed on what was going on through emails or phone calls. Since it was my first time selling a property, she patiently explained everything very thoroughly to me. She made it so easy and stress free and that is saying a lot because at the time I was 9 months pregnant. She guided me through the entire process with honest feedback and informative information that I knew I could trust. She really cares about her clients. I highly recommend Debbie to anyone who is either buying or selling a home. I will definitely be using Debbie again when I buy my new house this year. Thank you Debbie.

We had an excellent experience working with Debbie selling our last home and buying our dream home. She’s professional, knowledgeable and extremely well connected — absolutely critical in this overheated market. Our home sold well over asking, with multiple offers, and with a very smooth close. On the purchase side, we came in significantly under asking at a time where every other sale was going way over. Debbie deftly handled a difficult agent on the sale side and stayed on top of every detail throughout escrow. We were very lucky to have Debbie representing our interests and would highly recommend her to anyone looking to buy or sell on the peninsula.

Debbie is an excellent realtor. She helped us win the bid for our dream home in the peninsula. We had a smooth and pleasant experience with her all throughout, from the first meeting during which we discussed what we were looking for, all the way to the end when she handed us the keys to the house. When she gave us the keys, she also gave a handwritten card to congratulate us on being new homeowners, along with a gift card to a local restaurant for a nice celebratory dinner. It really made for a warm welcome to our first home.
One thing that I especially liked about her was that she paid very close attention to aspects of the properties that we went to view. She would point out things that I would never have noticed that could potentially be negative things. For example, one time we were viewing a house and she noticed that the floor in one room was sloping downwards very slightly, probably due to some settling in the foundation. She also noticed that one house had unusually low bathroom countertops, which would have been a little more uncomfortable for us since we are both tall people. She’ll make sure she knows what you like (e.g. I really wanted a kitchen with a lot of natural light), and if a property doesn’t fit that requirement, she’ll make sure to point that out. She genuinely wants you to love the place that you buy; she is not a realtor that will try to convince you how great a house is just so she can make a sale and get her commission quickly. Debbie worked with us for months while we were searching for our house, and not once did we feel that she was getting impatient or frustrated that we hadn’t found something yet. She assured us that it was the right thing to take our time and be picky about our first home purchase.
Debbie’s assistant, Stacy, is the one who prepares the list of houses for viewings when you’re early on in the process. Make sure that if you have anything to add or change in your list of specific property requirements, copy Stacy when you e-​mail Debbie about it. Debbie is very responsive via SMS but e-​mail is really the best way to communicate so that Stacy knows about it when she prepares the itinerary for the viewing day.
Debbie really knows the market (she’s very well-​connected) and can give advice on the amount that would make an offer competitive enough. She is also a very confident person by nature, so when the time came to present our offer to the seller, she was 100% ready. Anybody who works with Debbie will be in good hands.
UPDATE 3 Dec 2014: Corrected the name of Debbie’s assistant

Debbie was our buying agent.
We worked with three others before finding her. While they were all nice, we felt they were not delivering what we needed. As first time home buyers, we wanted:
(1) Strong and data driven pricing guidance (as opposed to someone who gave us numbers and a lot of hypotheticals regarding what it could sell for). Debbie tells it to you like it is. While you may not be wiling to pay that price, you’ve got a number to decide if it’s worth your time.
(2) Knowledge of fixer uppers. This was key for us. We were buying a project and had no idea what it would cost to do basic things. Debbie provided us with better guidance than the other agents, and did it quickly. She has done her share of projects and you can tell by talking to her. If she does not know the rough cost, she will quickly get someone to the property to get a quote.
(3) Connections. Debbie knows everyone! I learned how the real estate industry really works watching her. She knows prices before they are published and can get the skinny on most houses. Her connections take you far and it was my impression that most agents know her well. I didn’t think that mattered when we started but quickly learned that it does.
(4) Helpful after the close. I still reach out to Debbie for advice on projects in our house. She is always giving me tips, referrals and recommendations on how they would impact the value of the house.

We have bought two houses and sold one, in 3 years, all through Debbie. Each time in the worst possible markets and each time we came out of the transactions with the best possible outcomes.
She is efficient, down to the point, realistic, reliable, trustworthy, unbelievably knowledgeable, has an amazing talent for «knowing which house is for you», unfazed by the crazy Bay Area market, calming and reassuring, knows almost all the other realtors in the business and has a great relationship with them, a great network in the business generally (contractors, painters, etc.), she gets it done, great understanding of worth, what it will take for her client to get the house, very professional and knows her stuff. In addition. she is a fun, caring and down-​to-​earth person. I loved working with her!
I have referred her to all my friends and just say enough good things about her!

Oh boy, this rating system needs more stars for Debbie.
If it weren’t for Debbie, we wouldn’t have a house today. It’s as simple as that. As other reviewers have noted, the market is extremely crazy right now, and Debbie got us to look at a pocket listing (one that never went on MLS), negotiated with the sellers aggressively on our behalf, and got us to close on time at the exact asking price with full contingencies.
If you’ve been following the Bay Area market, you’ll realize that that last part isn’t to be found often: we paid not a cent over asking price. And all contingencies were in place for a standard 25-​day close.
Throughout the process, Debbie helped us figure out what we wanted, taking us on neighborhood tours and just simply listening to us. She nudged us away from a couple places we liked, even though that would have meant a quicker sale (and commission) for herself. She wanted to make sure we got a house we were happy with long-​term, and told us as much.
People in the business, including our lender, all the other agents we encountered during open houses and realtor tours, seemed to respect her for her honesty, candor, and openness. After working with her for a few months, we began implicitly trusting her with whatever she suggested, without second-​guessing it ourselves. We told each other that she knew better than either of us what we were doing, and to just go with whatever she’s suggesting, knowing that it would turn out fine at the end. That sort of confidence you can lay on someone is definitely not to be overlooked when making the single largest purchase of your lifetime.
In addition, she has a trusted network of inspectors, handymen, and all sorts of engineers who’d come help us out as needed. We’ve since found out how tough it is to get anyone to show up at all, much less on time. If it weren’t for Debbie’s contacts and connections, we’d not have been able to close as quickly as we did.
And the last bit of awesomeness from Debbie just came in the mail. She mailed us this January – several months after the purchase – a copy of the documents we would need to file our taxes this year, with a note asking us to have our CPA call her directly if they had any questions. You can’t beat service like that!
She deserves somewhere around 10 stars.

I chose Debbie based on reviewing her 5 star reviews. I live out of state and was looking for a listing agent with the knowledge, confidence, strong negotiation skills and a team to guide me though the sale of my condo expertly and she definitely was everything I was looking for and I highly recommend her!

This is the third time I have used Debbie as my agent and my experience was nothing less than perfection. She’s extremely knowledgeable and knows exactly what she’s doing. She gets the job done in a professional manner. She listens to your needs and will work with you. Thank you Debbie for a job well done.

It has been a tough market for Bay Area Buyers. Home supply is at a historical low and demand is rapidly increasing due to low interest rates and foreign interest. We lost 3 offers to cash buyers, who are paid 100K to 200K over the listing price with a 10-​day close.
Given the above circumstances, we knew we had to get the BEST agent in the area to have a decent chance at our dream home. We did numerous researches both online and offline, Debbie Wilhelm’s name keep popping as the top agent in Belmont, San Carlos, and San Mateo area. We reached out to her to be our agent and she delivered like #1 Real Estate agent in Belmont and beyond.
Connections — Debbie is probably one of most respected agents in Mid Peninsula. All the local agents know her well and know she can deliver. She also developed tons of great working relationships with other top agents, bankers, escrow agent, inspectors, etc — these connections will give a lot of advantage over others. You will soon find her voice and presence carries a lot of weight in the marketplace.
Determination — Debbie simply will NOT quit until you find your home. When we lost on one of our offers, she immediately got on the phone and found four more listings. She worked with us many nights reviewing reports and coming up with the right offer price.
Instincts — Debbie estimates home sales price like no other — she was dead on for 8 out 9 listings we looked at — her estimates were +/​-​1% of the actual selling price! It pretty amazing when you consider all the factors goes into the determining a market price for a home. You may save $ 10K with other agents, but you might by $ 50K over
Insights — Debbie brought and sold a lot of homes in Bay Area. As first time buyers, we jumped to conclusion few times — she was there to pull us back to reality by being honest and open about possible issues based on her experience.
Negotiation — She is well known for her negotiation skills. She keeps assertiveness and empathy in balance when dealing with others — which results in good deal for you both as a seller or buyer.
In my mind, finding a good agent is crucial in your home buying process. Why not go for the BEST.

Debbie was the listing agent on a home we were interested in putting in a bid for. When I called her on the phone, she was so pleasant and very honest. she didnt try to make it sound as though there were tons of bids. We were working with another agent at the time. When we decided to find an agent that specialized in the Belmont/​San Mateo area, Debbie was the first person I reached out to since I remembered how nice and honest she seemed. We also reached out to Caroline Dinsmore (equally wonderful) and we decided to work with them as co agents, best move we made!
They were both so easy to work with and very responsive to our emails and phone calls. They both have a great sense of humor and are just so easy to talk to. They always explained everything to us and were always patient. We wanted to see so many houses and they never told us they couldn’t. They showed us every single house we wanted to see (and there were a lot). They helped us find our dream home in April… we honestly dont think we could have done it without their expertise. They have a lot of respect from other real estate agents and I think that goes a long way when you submit your bids.
The best part was that most real estate agents would probably run if they heard we were going to use a VA loan, not Caroline and Debbie… they never ever made us feel like we weren’t as important as their other clients. They recommended an awesome mortgage broker, Stefani Hartsell, and we closed with a VA loan in 30 days… which is almost impossible to do!
I would recommend them both in a heartbeat. you wont regret it.