Martinez · Selling Your Home

Selling Your Home in Martinez

Anyone can put a home on the market. It's how we position, present, and promote it that can make the difference in what you walk away with.

Talk about Martinez All of Martinez

Selling Your Home in Martinez

Martinez is the county seat and reads as a real town, with craftsman housing downtown rather than tract product. If you are selling here, that is not background information. It is the thing your pricing and your marketing both have to answer.

Martinez has a working marina, a courthouse and a farmers market, and it never became a subdivision. It offers character housing at a lower entry than the 680 corridor cities, with the maintenance that comes with it.

What is my Martinez home worth?

Prefer to talk? Call (925) 325-4663 Book a call with Jaynlin See how we do it, step by step

How Martinez actually prices

Pre-1980 construction predominates, so condition and updates drive price here more than square footage does.

Here there is more competing inventory than in the smaller markets, so a listing that does not stand out in week one simply gets absorbed.

Buyers looking here almost always look at Concord, Walnut Creek and Pittsburg as well. Martinez gets weighed against Concord and Pleasant Hill, usually by buyers who want the character and are weighing the upkeep.

What matters when you are selling your home

Putting a property into the MLS takes about twenty minutes and every licensed agent in this county can do it. If that were the job you would be right to hire whoever charges least.

Buyers of older homes inspect harder. Knowing what yours will show before it goes live is worth more here than almost anywhere.

The job is making sure that in the first seven to ten days your house is live, the people most likely to pay the most for it have seen it, presented properly. After that window a listing stops being new and becomes inventory. Price reductions follow. Buyers start asking what is wrong with it.

The mistake to avoid in Martinez

The one we see most often here is underestimating what deferred maintenance does to an offer on pre-1980 construction.

Our sellers describe it in their own reviews better than we can. One called it an aggressive marketing approach that got their home exposure to many buyers. Another had a buyer in five days at over list. Across the team there are 201 published reviews averaging 4.9 stars.

Who is buying in Martinez

Buyers wanting older character housing at a different number than Concord or Walnut Creek. You are looking at the farmers market, the marina, and the Alhambra Valley just west of town.

Talk to us about Martinez

The Mashore Group works across the Bay Area from an office at 44 Sycamore Ave in Brentwood. Krista Mashore has sold more than 2,300 homes here over more than two decades. Across the team there are 201 published reviews averaging 4.9 stars.

If you want to talk about selling your home in Martinez call (925) 325-4663. A first conversation costs nothing and carries no pitch, and if the honest answer is that you should wait, we will say so.

Older stock needs an agent who knows what a 1940s bungalow costs to bring current, and what buyers will pay for one that already is, and that is worth more in Martinez than a general opinion about the county.

Frequently Asked Questions

How should a Martinez home be priced?

Pre-1980 construction predominates, so condition and updates drive price here more than square footage does.

What repairs are worth doing first?

Fewer than most people expect. A small number of items return more than they cost and the rest is money you do not get back. We walk the house and tell you specifically rather than handing you a checklist.

What makes your marketing different?

Most listings go live and then wait to be found. We build the photography, video and campaign before launch so week one is the strongest week. Clients name it unprompted in their reviews.

What goes wrong most often in Martinez?

The most common mistake is underestimating what deferred maintenance does to an offer on pre-1980 construction. Older stock needs an agent who knows what a 1940s bungalow costs to bring current, and what buyers will pay for one that already is.

Martinez

What selling your home looks like in Martinez

Craftsman housing, a working marina, and Amtrak to four cities.

Martinez is the county seat and it feels like a real town rather than a subdivision. There is a farmers market, a marina, independent restaurants and a courthouse, and the housing downtown is bungalows and craftsman homes rather than tract product.

That older stock is the trade. It has character you cannot build new, and it comes with the maintenance that pre-1980 construction brings.

The homes: Bungalows and craftsman-style houses from the mid-20th century downtown, with larger homes and lots moving south toward the hills. Alhambra Valley has custom homes, larger parcels and some horse properties. Pre-1980 construction predominates. Named areas include downtown and the waterfront, Upper Martinez and the Estates, and the Alhambra Valley corridor.
Why people choose it: Chosen for older character housing at a different price point than Concord or Walnut Creek, and for a town with a farmers market, a marina and independent restaurants rather than a master-planned feel.
Schools people ask about: Martinez Unified School District covers the majority of the city, including Alhambra Valley, Mountain View and most of Vine Hill. Mount Diablo Unified serves portions of Martinez, so assignment follows the parcel rather than the city name. Confirm any specific address with the district.
Getting around: Amtrak Capitol Corridor stops here with direct rail to Oakland, Berkeley, Sacramento and San Jose with no transfer. Highway 4 and Interstate 680 by car. Downtown is walkable; Upper Martinez is 10 to 15 minutes from downtown and about 20 to 25 minutes from Walnut Creek.
Nearby: Benicia directly across the Carquinez Strait, Concord to the south, Pleasant Hill to the southeast, and the Alhambra Valley to the west.
The trade-off: None of the newer-subdivision feel found in Brentwood or San Ramon, and the older stock asks for comfort with maintenance.

From the blog