Jennifer Owen

We came to the Bay Area in 1978 and bought our first house on Avila Rd in San Mateo - my husband bought it without me (I was still working in Boston) and I don't even remember seeing photos of it! But it was a great house. So - I thought buying a house was easy! Eventually we moved to Hillsborough and I learned how stressful, frustrating and exciting the whole house buying/selling thing could be. But we got such a special place! Years later, life happened, I got to downsize and had to do it pretty quickly. I'd looked at some (it seemed like a lot of) houses that made me sad and then my agent brought me to a house in Redwood Shores that wasn't quite on the market yet, before their first open house, I think. It felt like home so I gave the sellers what they asked for and RS became my neighborhood. Then the kids grew up and it was time to downsize even further.

What surprised me most about this last home buying experience was Raziel. I wasn't expecting to find such an intuitive, caring, responsive, patient and professional agent. This man knows what he's doing and he represented my interests much better than I could have done myself. I will always be grateful.

My experience working with Raziel was outstanding.

Buying or selling a home is a huge decision to make and Raziel made it as comfortable as humanly possible. Both transactions went smoothly and it came down to his personality, his creativity and his experience.

Being near water! The trees and the water soothe my soul!

Redwood Shores is an easy place to live. It is quiet and safe with handy access the rest of the Bay Area. I think every home is within walking distance of a park and/or the Bay Trail and these are huge advantages for people who like to play outside. The well established landscape and proximity to the Belmont Slough, the Bay or the lagoons create some charming places to hang out. There's a great library, and you don't have to go far for things like groceries or dry cleaning. And (although I no longer have small children) I love living in a area that is really family-friendly. I see kids walking and cycling to school, they use the library after class, kick balls and swarm over play structures in the parks.

London (Wimbledon Park) and New Zealand are two very different places.

We lived in a little 2 up/2 down row house with garden in Wimbledon Park. The houses were supposed to have metal railing fences in the front but they were all gone - to make armaments for WWII - so until people grew proper hedges we kids could run up and down the street through everyone's front garden. There was the corner shop to buy sweets and a park across the street with a wood filled with bluebells every spring and a lady who sold bunches of violets outside the tube station. So I was pretty upset when my parents decided to emigrate to NZ, but it was one of the (very many) great things they did.

Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty was a city, but a small one. Once I got over the culture shock, life was very good - especially the weather! My parents built a house on a 1/4 acre in one of the suburbs and there were empty lots to play in for quite a few years. We could walk to primary school, then cycle to high school and we lived 2 blocks from a small dairy farm and for many years I helped milk 25 cows in return for riding lessons and unlimited access to the farmer's ponies. Couldn't have done that in London!