Quetzal Grimm acts as the Vice President and Managing Director of The Agency in Silicon Valley. Grimm has over 20 years of experience in real estate sales and management.
Kiersten Ligeti & Patricia Karoubi Team: Hello Quetzal, we are super excited to do this! Thank you for joining us for this interview!
Quetzal Grimm: Absolutely! Happy to be here and thank you for inviting me. This should be a lot of fun!
QUESTION 1
Kiersten Ligeti & Patricia Karoubi Team: As an introduction to our readers, please tell us a little bit about your background and how you ended up in the position you are now, as Vice President at The Agency.
Quetzal Grimm: Of course. I was extremely lucky to join the Woodside office of Alain Pinel Realtors in 2003 with my mother-in-law, Diane Chesler, who was a very successful and well-respected agent. She still is, now with The Agency. Within a few years, my direct manager, Mary Gebhardt (a legend in the local real estate community), made me the sales manager for Woodside as she managed the Menlo Park office as well. She wanted the Woodside office to develop its own culture and community unique from Menlo Park. Although 90% of my time was spent acting as an agent, that opportunity gave me my first taste of a manager’s role in residential real estate. I also met and worked with the best managers and leadership team around, including Rainy Hake Austin who has been a central figure in any career successes I’ve enjoyed.
Then in 2019, Compass purchased Alain Pinel Realtors which was a very exciting journey. In September of that year, I transitioned from an agent and became a full-time Manager for Compass. I started in Palo Alto then moved to Burlingame and eventually came to Los Altos when Bill Lewis retired. I’ve been fortunate to always work under fantastic managers, including Bill.
Rainy left Compass to return to her boutique brokerage roots in 2020 when she became President of The Agency. We stayed in touch as friends but didn’t talk business for a couple of years. In the first quarter of 2022, Rainy and I started exploring working together again and we came up with an exciting plan to expand The Agency to Silicon Valley and the Peninsula. We started in Los Altos with one office, where we now have two, and opened in Woodside earlier this year. And here we are today.
QUESTION 2
Kiersten Ligeti & Patricia Karoubi Team: We know that you helped launch The Agency Los Altos here in Silicon Valley last summer as the Managing Director. We now have three offices in the region and over 50 agents. So exciting! What has been the most rewarding part of this journey?
Quetzal Grimm: When I first started my journey at The Agency, I thought building something from the ground up here would have been the most exciting part, and it certainly is a great feeling. However, I think the most rewarding aspect has been working so closely with all of the great agents and staff that have joined our team. We’re on this ship together and the only way it can be successful is if we’re all rowing in the same direction. Plus, everyone’s successes benefit us all. An individual win is a win for the team and every other agent. When one of our agents has a great listing or sale, that helps us all with market exposure and furthering our presence in the communities that we serve. Experiencing this level of collaboration and interest in each other’s success has been overwhelming in the most positive way.
QUESTION 3
Kiersten Ligeti & Patricia Karoubi Team: On the other side of the coin, what has been the most challenging?
Quetzal Grimm: There’s just so much to manage when opening offices, from landscaping to coffee selection to recruiting agents and getting our building signs up. You’re constantly pulled in a million directions so you need to remind yourself to always focus on the three or four key things you need to accomplish at that moment. The main challenge is making sure we honor the promise of great service and support that we made to our team members when they joined, even when surrounded by the chaos that growth often brings.
QUESTION 4
Kiersten Ligeti & Patricia Karoubi Team: I’m sure you’ve seen a lot! We’ve all been in real estate for quite some time. Our team has over 45 years of combined experience, and you have over 20 years of experience yourself. Is there a funny or interesting story from either a real estate agent or manager's perspective that you can share?
Quetzal Grimm: When I was newly licensed I remember showing a beautiful very high-end property in Woodside. I did some quick research about the home and surrounding neighbors but not in great detail. The listing agent took us on a tour of the house and property and talked about all its great attributes. My client asked about a neighboring property that he thought was leased by a friend of his. The listing agent waited for me to respond, but when I didn’t they proceeded to provide details about that house as well as all of the neighbors. I easily could have lost that client at that point. It was a great lesson for me about what market knowledge truly means and that my preparation was not adequate.
Plus there was a time many years ago when I forgot to update my lockbox key and couldn’t unlock the front door! So being the good REALTOR® that I am, I opened a small bathroom window, squeezed through, knocked everything off two shelves, and let my client in. Real estate has its glamorous sides, but mostly it's about solving problems in whatever way you can.
QUESTION 5
Kiersten Ligeti & Patricia Karoubi Team: Shifting to the real estate market, how would you describe the current state of the Silicon Valley real estate market in general?
Quetzal Grimm: Like most of the country, we are impacted by a serious lack of inventory and higher interest rates causing uncertainty for both buyers and sellers. But well-priced and prepared properties are still selling, sometimes with multiple offers. We just had a listing in Sunnyvale that received 20 offers. Clearly, there are still many able and eager buyers out there. We also see homes sitting on the market that we expected to sell right away. So, although we do our best, it can be difficult to predict outcomes.
The very high end has seen some great activity in Woodside and Atherton, with several homes selling for over $30 million.
QUESTION 6
Kiersten Ligeti & Patricia Karoubi Team: With the tech industry driving much of the region's growth historically, how do you foresee this influencing the trajectory of the Silicon Valley property market in the next few years?
Quetzal Grimm: One of the many great things about working in Silicon Valley is that we are right on the pulse of innovation. We’re already seeing a lot of VC funding flowing to companies developing AI technology, and they’re also starting to lease space in Silicon Valley and San Francisco. Those companies and entrepreneurs may be the next industry that will create wealth and home buyers in our area. We’re fortunate that there’s always a new group thinking about things differently, building new concepts and companies, and always pushing forward.
QUESTION 7
Kiersten Ligeti & Patricia Karoubi Team: In light of the pandemic's effects on remote work, have you noticed any notable shifts in buyer preferences for specific property features or locations within Silicon Valley and surrounding areas?
Quetzal Grimm: In the immediate months after the pandemic started, we definitely saw home buyers looking for more outdoor space and proximity to nature. Which was different from the desired proximity to downtown areas and public transportation that we recently experienced. With work-from-home, buyers also realized they could, and did, work from anywhere. So more areas were available to buyers that, in some cases, were also more affordable. That trend has quieted down as buyers believe they may no longer have a work-from-home option, or at least not every day. But we are still seeing a desire to have dedicated office space in the home. Sometimes that’s in the form of ADUs.
QUESTION 8
Kiersten Ligeti & Patricia Karoubi Team: Interest rates have become a large part of the overall real estate conversation recently. In fact, we wrote a whole blog about it! From your perspective, how have interest rate changes affected the real estate market in Silicon Valley?
Quetzal Grimm: I think the biggest impact of increasing rates has been how it limits inventory. Approximately 62% of mortgages in the United States are below 4% and about 25% are below 3%. If those homeowners want to sell their current home and purchase another one they will, in all likelihood, be taking on a much larger monthly mortgage payment. That added expense is definitely preventing owners wishing to purchase a larger, or even smaller home, from selling their current home, keeping inventory levels low.
QUESTION 9
Kiersten Ligeti & Patricia Karoubi Team: Our blog really focused on the specific differences in how interest rates affect the luxury real estate market. Following the theme of our previous question, how do rising interest rates affect the luxury real estate market from your perspective?
Quetzal Grimm: Fluctuating interest rates impact the luxury market much differently than other markets where mortgages are more prevalent when purchasing a home. Luxury home buyers typically use mortgages as a tool rather than a necessity when purchasing a property. Even if the purchase could be made with cash they could use a mortgage to preserve cash or as an alternative to selling stock.
QUESTION 10
Kiersten Ligeti & Patricia Karoubi Team: Let’s finish up with something light! We like to practice gratitude on our team. Especially during a changing market, it’s super important to remember what’s most important. Quetzal, what are you most grateful for?
Quetzal Grimm: Definitely grateful for many things in my life. Family, friends, great colleagues. I’m incredibly lucky to be surrounded by people that care about me and help me in this journey. Being in the real estate industry means we work a lot, and sometimes miss milestone moments—we rely on our loved ones to keep our lives moving forward. I’m most grateful for my wife as she’s supported me in what I’ve wanted to accomplish in my career and personal life. I know taking care of our family and frequently managing things on her own hasn’t been easy but she’s always done it with a smile and so much love.
Kiersten Ligeti & Patricia Karoubi Team: Well that was amazing! Thank you again Quetzal so much for joining us and sharing your insights on real estate, life, and more. I think all of our readers will take something away from this.
Quetzal Grimm: Of course! Thanks for having me, Kiersten and Patricia. It’s always a pleasure speaking with you both. Keep on doing what you do best which is selling luxury real estate in Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, and beyond!
Kiersten Ligeti | 650.766.8319 | LIC. #01298631
Patricia Karoubi | 650.868.4565 | LIC. #01396914
The Agency Los Altos
