// the mood & vibes this week
— hi, friends :) writing this to you from my kitchen table at the silver laurel. it's 8:45 pm and i am winding down for the night.
— last i spoke to you, i was working on putting the final touches on my upcoming listing. we are fast approaching photo day! maybe it's the capricorn in me, but i get so granular when it comes to listing presentation. i really just have this vision in my head of how a house should look and feel-i get all creative director, and it's really fun. my goal is always to be incredibly respectful of the house's bones & environment - to tell the architectural story in a very authentic manner. where things should never feel too produced, but still be extremely well-thought-out. this manifests in prep choices, staging, and especially photography.
— and speaking of the latter…i kind of have beef with most real estate photos. in my humble opinion, the most prevalent style of shooting feels flat, sterile, and overproduced. where the blue sky is photoshopped, the whites are too harsh, and the colors are excessively saturated. and it doesn't help that every light in the GD place is flipped on. i just feel like we could be doing better. and many are! in LA and other coastal environs, folks are pretty with it - the standard of using editorial photographers is definitely there. but it's absolutely not across-the-board.
— when i get a house shot (and often contribute shots myself) i really like to lean into the film-adjacent of it all…the grain and the imperfection…where you don't need to show every corner of a house to create a narrative. i learned the inklings of this skill from my first real estate mentor, logan, over half a decade ago. and have since evolved those experiences into my own vision. it's worked really well over my career in terms of like, how listings perform in the market, and satisfying the part of me that is, as my friends put it, a creative selling houses to other creatives. it flexes all that good juju!
— some other bits and bobs:
-----miscellaneous triplex chores at #thesilverlaurel (yes i used a hashtag in an email…it's the millennial in me) like - pruning my hedges so they grow in evenly
-----started listening to the “i've had it” podcast (10/10 recommend)
-----bar trivia at spoke in frogtown
-----going to a cool outdoorsy event with usal & dometic (got to sit in tents on top of giant cars!)
-----started looking for a roommate to fill the other bed/bath in my 2 bed, 2 bath apartment (if you have any friends who might be interested/you yourself are interested, respond to this email for price and deets!)
-----tried heatless blowout rods for the first time and they slayed
-----went to a bestie's housewarming who had a psychic and i got my cards read!
-----toured many a cool house with clients
— aside from all that, the routines have been pretty steadfast, and nothing too crazy is happening. i think there's a meme somewhere that says - ‘me in bed by 9pm because i've been protecting my peace' - and that feels so true as of late. mainly as it relates to the dating realm. because, as i've said to my friends, i'm on strike! until conditions improve! this is meant in jest but also in truth.
— i've been on the dating apps my entire adult life. and it has yielded incredible results at times, this is true. but lately, it's just been feeling like an energy suck. the endless swiping and the conversations that go nowhere. it's such a common plight that naming the exhaustion is almost cliche. but i've made a conscious decision recently that i want to plug that energy loop back into myself. into my community. into my career. i have a lot i want to do to become…her. in all senses of the word. i want to focus on building my own world right now, before opening it up to someone else. and it's kind of freeing to just be conscious about that, and make a different choice than i've made in the past. this isn't to say that romantic love isn't something important to me-that couldn't be farther from the truth. i am a capital l capital g Lover Girl. with a BFA in yearning, as it were. but i've just got bigger fish to fry right now, yk?
— speaking of fish…that makes me think of rivers…which makes me think of oregon. OREGON! that's certainly a leap to a new topic, but you guys know i'm always thinking about the PNW. and in specific, my upcoming summer trip. i've been planning one recently with the girlies, where i'll be there in the beginning of july. now it's just a question of, how do i button everything up beforehand so i can leave in peace. but knowing our industry, the moment you leave town is when things ramp up, and everybody wants to buy or sell. it's how it is!
— and the market has a similar kind of energy right now, but it's definitely location-dependent. well-priced, well-positioned homes on the eastside are getting slews of offers, like always. in the past few months i've been in at least 4 offer rounds with 12+ buyers vying for a property. yet in other locales, things are not flying as quickly off the shelves. we're definitely in that spring buzz though, and a lot of great listings have come on as of late.
— in terms of what's coming up … continually on the hunt with my slew of buyers. prepping houses to launch. always searching for the best houses in CA. below you'll find a collection of listings i love on the market.
— if you're considering buying or selling in LA or NorCal in 2026,
message me here.— if you're looking to buy a wood house elsewhere in CA + the US, there's a good chance i can refer you to an agent in your city. referrals are a great way to support me. whenever i send a client to one of my cool out-of-area agent friends, i actually receive a portion of that commission! and like most things in life, a recommendation from a friend is the way to go. if that's you, respond to this email and i'd be happy to connect you.
— talk to you soon, and sending love.
xx,
sam
