Putting Client's Asset First with Integrity and Experience

James and his family came from Taiwan in 1979 and settled in Sunnyvale.  He attended Cupertino Jr. Hi. and graduated from Homestead Hi in 1984. After graduating from UCLA with a degree in Education Psychology, he then taught ESL classes in Hollenbeck Elementary in Sunnyvale till 1992.

James was one of the youngest Chinese Realtors when he started in 1992 here in Silicon Valley. With much enthusiasm from education field, James maintains his humbleness when he helps his friends making perhaps the biggest investment decisions in their lives.  James has achieved much success, won numerous awards, and has assisted hundreds of families moving in the Valley.

If you’ve been fortunate enough to followed James over the course of his over 25 years of experience in Silicon Valley real estate, you would’ve known he has been not only brutally honest with his clients. He’d also fought extra hard to negotiating the best price for his clients.

In addition, you would have found that James has been extremely accurate in predicting the market trend for the Valley over the last 12 years. This has been especially important and true since 2004. It’s clear, by looking at a sampling of his comments in the past newsletters, that James truly has a keen sense regarding the real estate market.

The following are some examples:

March 15, 2005... “Property values have increased very rapidly in a short period of time, particularly in the under $1 mil range. At some point, the buyers will resist.”

September 27, 2005… “We expect a slow down for the first-time buyer market in the next few months as the interest rate increases. This increase cost of homeownership coupled with the holiday season all play a factor in the first-time buyer marketplace.”

April 11, 2006… “ The inventory of homes on the market has been increasing steadily since January. This has forced us to get back to the basics where location, pricing, and condition are the utmost importance. Another important factor connected with increasing inventory is the availability of similar competing properties. In other words, what can the buyers buy instead of your home. Some neighborhoods will always have more to choose from because of its demography and density. Therefore, it’s important to evaluate the entire market when pricing a home.”

August 19, 2008… “Personally, I believe that, the mortgage rate, the inventory, and consumer confidence will play the key roles in the first quarter of 2009, with a favorable mortgage rate as your first batter. I also agree with the point that median price may drop back to the levels of 2003 or 2004 in many areas, particularly the first-time buyer market. If so, it might be the end of the bottoming.

March 3, 2009… “...with the investors supporting the housing price of the first-time buyer market, we may see the bottom of these areas in the next 6 months…”

While James was making the above predictions he continued to give bold and honest advice to his clients. He had the strength to recommend few of his clients NOT to purchase homes in 2005 and 2006. He is most proud of this same advice he gave to three single moms. Even though he would have made more money, James strongly believed that he should stand behind his own words and look out for his clients’ best interests. Ultimately, this saved these individuals tens and thousands of dollars, or even their homes.

As we progress into the future, James believes the realtors should play the role of real estates advisors, analyzing the market, customize the marketing strategies, and diagnose various inspection reports. Most realtors are trained to handling objections and thus obtaining signatures on the dotted lines.  They forget to put the client's need first with the best possible professional services.  With more than 25 years of expertise in local real estate, James will continue strive to serve the industry with the utmost honesty, integrity, and fiduciary duty for his clients

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Testimonial

Testimonial
My husband and I have known James for over 14 years. He has helped us twice during this time frame to buy two homes and sell one. James has one of the highest integrity and humility we've ever known. He always has the best interest of his clients in mind, even above his own interests. We HIGHLY recommend him--he is thorough, thoughtful, caring, professional all the way.
Top qualities: Great Results, Personable, High Integrity
Sabrina Lin. Almaden Valley, San Jose, Feb 2010

We feel blessed to have James as our agent in purchasing a house and selling another for us. What impresses us the most is that James always tries to put himself in his clients' shoes, but never tries to push the clients. He puts in extra efforts in planning, researching and brings the ultimate satisfaction to his clients. His caring personality and professional work ethic makes the supposed-to-be stressful home purchasing/selling process a pleasant one.
John H. Sunnyvale 2012

We really enjoyed having James as our realtor. We found James a professional of great integrity and patience. Namely, someone you can trust. We were very comfortable with James and felt that he was looking after our interests. He's very knowledgeable about the homes and neighborhoods in the Bay Area, sharing that knowledge with us in depth as he listened to our needs and expectations. He patiently helped us explore homes and neighborhoods to help us better understand what we really wanted by seeing what communities, lifestyles and expected housing prices were available. James encouraged patience in waiting for the right buying opportunities in the areas we identified, giving us perspective, history and trends to level set our expectations. We really appreciated that, as I write from our newly purchased home, in the neighborhood we were targeting. Thanks James! Top Qualities: Personable, Expert, High Integrity
H Wen. 2008 Saratoga

Thank you for great recommendation and plans on selling my home. I have never met any agent that is willing to do this much legwork him or herself. It didn’t take long for me to get an offer. The whole process was a pleasant experience for me.
Charlie C. Cupertino 2003

I want to sincerely thank you for the excellent job that you did recently on the sale of our home in West San Jose. It is not a secret that in the current market the home would have sold itself. However, you put in extraordinary effort in planning, analysis of inspection reports, and excellent top quality staging were done to perfection.
My 3rd transaction with James
Hilton H. W. SJ. 2004

Your comprehensive knowledge across the real estate market, construction, architecture, and transaction processing and pricing negotiation etc, goes beyond what most real estate professional will offer. Combined with your dedication, work ethics, personality, and interpersonal skills not only bring the most optimal results from business and economic point of view, but also make the home purchasing/selling process a wonderful partnering experience.
My 4th transaction with James
Alan and Helen W. Cupertino 2006

On March 15, 2011, James helped me to purchase my first investment property (he also represented us getting our first home in 1995). He had provided valuable guidance as well as tremendous amount of time to make it happened. Now I'm a happy landlord. Big thanks to James.
The best thing about him is that his service does not end after you close the purchase. I'm still relying on his professional knowledge on many real estate related issues.
Jerry C

We cannot thank you enough for your support through both the sale of our home and the purchase of our new home. Your tenaciousness and ‘can do’ attitude took us through an extremely stressful time and kept us from ‘losing it’ on several occasions. And thank you for selling our home $100k higher then the appraised value…
George & Joanne H. Cupertino 2001

James Ma is an outstanding and exceptional real estate agent. My wife and I have had our last four houses all buy-and-sell with James. He has the honesty and integrity as a real estate agent, which I found it hard to find in these days' real estate market.
I will highly recommend James Ma for any real estate need.
Jim & Jillian Chen. 2012

"We strongly recommend James Ma to be your realtor. We have used James to both buy and sell homes in the South Bay and each time he made the experience simple, straightforward and pain free. Each step of the way was fully explained, timelines were laid out and kept to plus there were no surprises. We have recommended James' services to friends and would have no hesitation using James again in the future".
C. Lang. 2011

We were planning to pull equity out from our home and invest in real estate back in 2004 because houses were appreciating nearly 10% a year. James, who had helped us buying our current home in 1994, advised us NOT to do so. He believed that the market could see some correction, and that we might end up losing on both ends. Long and behold, he was right on. We don’t know any agent who wouldn't want to make money in selling real estate. James put our best interest way above his own. His intuition, honesty, experience, and integrity really helped us to keep more than just tangible assets. I know people have lost money, houses, and families out there during the housing bubble. And we are fortunate and grateful to have a superb adviser and a friend in James. We have since bought another investment property in 2010. And will look forward to have James helping us to find more properties soon.
Dr. W. Wong

Testimonial
My husband and I have known James for over 14 years. He has helped us twice during this time frame to buy two homes and sell one. James has one of the highest integrity and humility we've ever known. He always has the best interest of his clients in mind, even above his own interests. We HIGHLY recommend him--he is thorough, thoughtful, caring, professional all the way.
Top qualities: Great Results, Personable, High Integrity
Sabrina Lin. Almaden Valley, San Jose, Feb 2010

We feel blessed to have James as our agent in purchasing a house and selling another for us. What impresses us the most is that James always tries to put himself in his clients' shoes, but never tries to push the clients. He puts in extra efforts in planning, researching and brings the ultimate satisfaction to his clients. His caring personality and professional work ethic makes the supposed-to-be stressful home purchasing/selling process a pleasant one.
John H. Sunnyvale 2012

We really enjoyed having James as our realtor. We found James a professional of great integrity and patience. Namely, someone you can trust. We were very comfortable with James and felt that he was looking after our interests. He's very knowledgeable about the homes and neighborhoods in the Bay Area, sharing that knowledge with us in depth as he listened to our needs and expectations. He patiently helped us explore homes and neighborhoods to help us better understand what we really wanted by seeing what communities, lifestyles and expected housing prices were available. James encouraged patience in waiting for the right buying opportunities in the areas we identified, giving us perspective, history and trends to level set our expectations. We really appreciated that, as I write from our newly purchased home, in the neighborhood we were targeting. Thanks James! Top Qualities: Personable, Expert, High Integrity
H Wen. 2008 Saratoga

Thank you for great recommendation and plans on selling my home. I have never met any agent that is willing to do this much legwork him or herself. It didn’t take long for me to get an offer. The whole process was a pleasant experience for me.
Charlie C. Cupertino 2003

I want to sincerely thank you for the excellent job that you did recently on the sale of our home in West San Jose. It is not a secret that in the current market the home would have sold itself. However, you put in extraordinary effort in planning, analysis of inspection reports, and excellent top quality staging were done to perfection.
My 3rd transaction with James
Hilton H. W. SJ. 2004

Your comprehensive knowledge across the real estate market, construction, architecture, and transaction processing and pricing negotiation etc, goes beyond what most real estate professional will offer. Combined with your dedication, work ethics, personality, and interpersonal skills not only bring the most optimal results from business and economic point of view, but also make the home purchasing/selling process a wonderful partnering experience.
My 4th transaction with James
Alan and Helen W. Cupertino 2006

On March 15, 2011, James helped me to purchase my first investment property (he also represented us getting our first home in 1995). He had provided valuable guidance as well as tremendous amount of time to make it happened. Now I'm a happy landlord. Big thanks to James.
The best thing about him is that his service does not end after you close the purchase. I'm still relying on his professional knowledge on many real estate related issues.
Jerry C

We cannot thank you enough for your support through both the sale of our home and the purchase of our new home. Your tenaciousness and ‘can do’ attitude took us through an extremely stressful time and kept us from ‘losing it’ on several occasions. And thank you for selling our home $100k higher then the appraised value…
George & Joanne H. Cupertino 2001

James Ma is an outstanding and exceptional real estate agent. My wife and I have had our last four houses all buy-and-sell with James. He has the honesty and integrity as a real estate agent, which I found it hard to find in these days' real estate market.
I will highly recommend James Ma for any real estate need.
Jim & Jillian Chen. 2012

"We strongly recommend James Ma to be your realtor. We have used James to both buy and sell homes in the South Bay and each time he made the experience simple, straightforward and pain free. Each step of the way was fully explained, timelines were laid out and kept to plus there were no surprises. We have recommended James' services to friends and would have no hesitation using James again in the future".
C. Lang. 2011

We were planning to pull equity out from our home and invest in real estate back in 2004 because houses were appreciating nearly 10% a year. James, who had helped us buying our current home in 1994, advised us NOT to do so. He believed that the market could see some correction, and that we might end up losing on both ends. Long and behold, he was right on. We don’t know any agent who wouldn't want to make money in selling real estate. James put our best interest way above his own. His intuition, honesty, experience, and integrity really helped us to keep more than just tangible assets. I know people have lost money, houses, and families out there during the housing bubble. And we are fortunate and grateful to have a superb adviser and a friend in James. We have since bought another investment property in 2010. And will look forward to have James helping us to find more properties soon.
Dr. W. Wong