Sol Villarreal,

I’ve been a Realtor since the fall of 2014, and I’m very fortunate to have been able to work solely on a referral basis ever since I got into the business. Immediately before getting into real estate I spent four years doing outreach and communications work in the Seattle Mayor’s Office for former Mayor Mike McGinn, so I know the local politics world very well (when I first got into real estate I started writing a weekly email newsletter about local news & politics called the Civic Minute that goes out every Sunday morning at 6 am), and most of my initial clients were first-time homebuyers who I met during my time working at City Hall. Those initial clients had great experiences working with me, and my business grew quickly by word of mouth from there.

I’ve seen all sorts of different market conditions over the course of my real estate career, and I know how to navigate them all for buyers and sellers alike—but my specialty has always been helping first-time homebuyers get homes that they love quickly and easily. I’m also deeply knowledgeable about both the historical trends and the seasonal trends within the Seattle real estate market (elsewhere on this site you can find my graphs of the official Northwest Multiple Listing Service data as well as my own custom Seattle real estate stats that I pull directly from the NWMLS, all of which I update monthly), and I can help you cut through all the real estate data noise to understand what’s happening with the real estate market at any given time and what it means for you.

My work first in the Mayor’s Office during the Great Recession and now as a Realtor during Seattle’s post-recession boom have given me a deep appreciation for just how serious our housing affordability crisis is. To that end, I currently serve on the boards of the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance, which advocates in Olympia on behalf of tenant rights and additional funding for subsidized affordable housing; and both the Seattle-King County Realtors and the Washington Realtors, which spend a lot of time advocating for denser zoning and more affordable market-rate housing both locally and throughout the state.

I feel very fortunate to be able to do this job for a living—I absolutely love what I do, and I happen to be very good at it, too. But don’t take my word for it; you can read dozens of reviews from my previous clients on Zillow, and I’m happy to provide you with references upon request. If you’d like to talk further to see if you think we might be a good fit, please reach out; I’d love to hear from you.