One-Stop Real Estate with StarRiver Realty

By Zoe Francis, Hacienda Network Staff Writer

Buying a house is easy and efficient with the multiple services offered by StarRiver Realty.

The Sunnyvale-based firm with a new office in Hacienda offers a full range of services for homebuyers.

"We provide a one-stop service for the customer from buying a house through the mortgage and getting the insurance," owner Cindy Liu boasted. "We do everything."

Liu had been a top real estate agent for other companies when she decided to start her own firm in 2005.

"I think it's God's will to push me out to start something on my own," she said. "It's fun for me to go to the next level. I formed a team and started training some agents who are doing well. Once the team was there, we naturally became a company."

StarRiver started in Sunnyvale, but soon expanded with offices in San Jose and Fremont. The strong local market is what led Liu to open a Hacienda office in February of this year.

"When you follow the trends, you get the best share of the market," Liu said. "There's a lot of opportunity in Pleasanton. We can see a lot of companies are moving there and the housing market it pretty strong. We already have a lot of customers. There's a need there."

Liu is a licensed real estate broker and mortgage broker, in addition to owning her own insurance agency. When she started her own firm, it was important for her to offer all services in one location.

"Most customers enjoy this one-stop service," she noted. "If they can do all the work with you, they feel comfortable and you can build a long-term relationship with the customer."

The wide range of services also allows Liu and her agents to help customers better allocate their money and make better investments. That means more value for their dollar.

"It's more of an asset planning strategy," she explained. "The result is they own more assets than they might get with another agent. That means they're making more money."

Liu credits her previous experience with helping her decide how to organize her own company.

"When I worked for other firms, I found that a lot of brokers didn't do too many deals by themselves," Liu noted. "Their knowledge was pretty out of date. They may have been top producers, but every agent worked on their own. They didn't have a team. They didn't have a strategy to help the agents work together as a team to serve the customer with a deeper transaction."

Liu currently has about 60 agents, most with multiple licenses such as real estate and mortgage, plus another 20 associate brokers.

"My target is I want to hire more agents and help them grow," she explained. "Our (Hacienda) location is really good. I want to have more agents join us and to help us better serve the Pleasanton area. We are pretty successful in the South Bay area. Pleasanton is now the area we want to serve."

Liu takes pride in working with her agents and associates to help them better serve StarRiver customers.

"We have a weekly or monthly meeting together," she said. "For me, it's more about how to inspire them, how to train them and how to help them resolve difficult problems."

Learn more about StarRiver Realty and its many services at starriverinc.com.

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