Find your happy place with an agent in your area.
An affordable, accessible real estate brokerage team for California home buyers.
Up to 1% cash back rebate at Closing.
A 5-Star company on Yelp.
We've received 300+ five star reviews on Yelp and Google from California residents trusting our white-glove service.
Working with Unlocked was wonderful and, as advertised, saved us a good amount of money in the process. While they do not provide a search service for your new home, they will be there for every following step of the process. Easy, well documented emails, we never thought there was something missing at any step.
Emmanuel C.
San Francisco, CA
Super responsive, always knowledgeable, and patient and polite, even when my own fuse was short. I can't speak highly enough about Unlocked. I honestly don't understand why you'd go with anyone else. I'm 100% going with Unlocked for any future home purchase.
Paul C.
San Francisco, CA
The numerous five star reviews are accurate. The home rebate is real. The customer experience is personal, prompt, and efficient. Seriously, you get almost all of the services of any other real estate agent with significant cost savings to come with it.
Tyler D.
San Francisco, CA
My husband and I loved our Unlocked experience! They guided us through our first time house-buying process, clearly communicating with us and being prompt with emails (which we really appreciated). We also listened to their bidding advice and was able to make a successful offer on our first home!We were very picky throughout the house-buying process, only making a single offer, and we are SO happy to finally own our first home.
Carrie C.
Sunnyvale, CA
The Long Story Short
We know what it takes to purchase a home because we've been there before.
Get 1% cash back on your home purchase.
Our agents seamlessly guide you through the home buying process, and and give you up to 1% cash back out of our own buyers' agent commission.
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Tools to help analyze true property value.
Data-driven home evaluation tools give you the insight and knowledge to make an offer with confidence.
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Our 5-Step Playbook, explained.
Take control of your home-purchasing experience. Unlocked makes it clear, efficient, and stress-free.
Step 1. Proper Preparation
Step 2: Find Your Dream Home
Step 3: Data-Driven Insight
Step 4: Submit a Competitive Offer
Step 5: Smooth Closing
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Step 1. Proper Preparation
• Get Pre-Approved
A great first step is to get pre-approved (if you require a mortgage). The Bay Area real estate market is very competitive and moves quickly, and waiting until you’ve found a home before applying for your mortgage may result in you missing the ‘offer deadline’.
• Assessing the Market and Honing InUnlike traditional agents, we don’t rely on ‘gut instinct’. Unlocked's partners have previously worked at the top management consulting, private equity and law firms, and leverage those experiences to bring data-driven analyses, transparency and insight to help you understand and navigate the real estate market in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and San Diego.
Step 2: Find Your Dream Home
• Tour HomesMost listings offer open house showings on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, usually for the first one or two weekends after the home first lists. You can tour the home at any time during the open house showing time, and can spend as little or as much time as your need in the home.
If you can't make the open house, please reach out to your Unlocked Lead Agent to schedule a private tour. We will coordinate the logistics for the private home tour with the listing agent, and an Unlocked agent will meet you at the home at the appointment time for your private tour.
• Send Us Your Dream HomeWhen you’ve toured a home that you are excited about, let us know and we can undertake our detailed evaluation of the home. We will complete our Disclosure Review Summary though an in-depth review of the disclosures, and create a Custom Valuation Report to give you an idea of the home's fair market value and expected sales price.
Step 3: Data-Driven Insight
• Custom Valuation Reports (CVR)For each property you’re interested in, we put together Unlocked’s Custom Valuation Report (Example CVR), a user-friendly dataset of recent comparable sales, nearby listings, and third-party valuations with our expert analysis on the fair market value and expected sales price range of the home.
• Disclosure Review Summary (DRS)
Unlocked helps you understand a home's true condition through our Disclosure Review Summary (Example DRS). We diligently read through the home's disclosure packet and provide a summary of key disclosure issues, as well as our assessment as to the level of risk of each.
Step 4: Submit a Competitive Offer
• Seamless Offer Process
Everything we do is done to make the home buying process simple. We’ve optimized the offer completion and submission process so that it is as seamless as possible for the buyer.
When you are ready to submit an offer, we’ll send you a template for the key offer terms for your purchase agreement. If you have any questions about the offer terms (e.g., what are offer contingencies, etc.), or if you’d like our advice on how to make your offer more competitive, we’ll be happy to jump on the phone to discuss. All offer documents are signed electronically via DocuSign, meaning that you can sign your offer documents quickly and from anywhere in the world.
• Negotiations
In today’s competitive market, it is not uncommon for there to be post-offer negotiations or multi-party counter-offers. If and when you’re in such a situation, we’ll help you navigate the negotiations, providing expert advice and diligent representation through the final stages, ensuring you end up with the best possible outcome, whether that is modifying your offer to win your dream home, or passing on the home if someone else is willing to pay more than you think the home is worth.
Step 5: Smooth Closing
• Smooth Closing ProcessWe understand that the escrow and closing period can be very stressful and time-pressured, so your Unlocked agent will continue to be at your side throughout the closing process. We’ll work with the escrow officer, your mortgage agent and the listing agent to ensure that all of the necessary steps seamlessly happen, and you’re able to close your purchase on time. As soon as you've closed on your new home, we will be very happy to provide you with your Unlocked cash back rebate of up to 1% of the purchase price of the home.
Custom Valuation Report
“What is this home worth and what will it sell for?” is a question we get asked a lot. While other real estate agents seem to pluck a random number out of thin air (usually a very high number), we bring data and analytical rigour to valuing a home.
Unlocked's Custom Valuation Report is an easy-to-interpret dataset of recent comparable transactions, nearby listings and third-party valuations. We also summarize the analysis for you and give our expert opinion on the fair market value and expected sales price of the home.
An Easy-To-Interpret Dataset:
Recent comparable transactions and nearby listings
Third-party valuations
Summary and analysis on the fair market value and expected sales price of the home
Disclosure Review Summary and Offer Strategy
Sellers and listing agents will prepare a packet of disclosures about the home. These disclosure packets contain a lot of vital information. Unfortunately, they are long (200+ pages) and dense, which doesn’t make for fun, relaxing reading.
Disclosure packet, summarized:
Catalog issues and provide our assessment as to the level of risk of each issue
Summarize our risk assessment of the six major reports in the disclosure packet
Provide an overview of the estimated repair costs needed for the property before move-in
Experienced Local Team
Our clients are our #1 priority. We understand that the real estate market moves quickly, and that we need to respond and react quickly to ensure our clients stay ahead of the market.
How We're Different:
Reachable by phone, text, and email
Fully-licensed California real estate brokerage that represents home buyers
We work around our client’s schedules (and not the other way around, as we’ve heard is the case with some other agents)
Some of the Folks at Unlocked
Get to know the passionate people who guide you through the real estate valleys.
Jesse Payne-Johnson
Co-Founder
Matthew Armstrong
Co-Founder
Justin Lemucchi
Partner
Rebekah Ahn
Partner
Edris Kamal
Partner
Katrina Tom
Partner
Max Sousa
Agent
Got Questions?
We've Got Answers
No question is too big or too small. Find answers to everything you've been wondering about Unlocked.
We cover the entire Bay Area. We've helped clients buy homes in San Francisco, North Bay, East Bay and South Bay. We also cover LA and San Diego in Southern California.
We provide all of the services of a traditional real estate agent, with better data-driven tools, increased transparency and more responsive customer service. We can help with as little or as much of the home-buying process as you require. Some clients come to us with a home already found and a price in mind, and need assistance with assessing the home and executing the transaction. Others are still figuring out their budget, what they're looking for, and advice on where to focus their search. Wherever you are in your home buying journey, we’re here to seamlessly guide you through your home buying process - finding the right home, valuing it, understanding the disclosures, submitting a competitive offer, and closing the transaction. We're with you from start to finish.
Yes. Unlocked is a fully-licensed California brokerage (CalDRE #02060530) and all of our agents are fully-licensed California sales agents and members of the California Association of Realtors (TM) and the National Association of Realtors (TM).
With Unlocked, you’ll be working with one of our fully-licensed real estate agents to get all of the services provided by a traditional real estate agent, with better data-driven tools, increased transparency and more responsive customer service. So in many respects, your buying experience will be the same as working with a traditional real estate agent - only better!
In terms of how we’re different, firstly, we offer 1% cash back. This is the largest buyer’s rebate in California (that we know about)! That is tens of thousands of dollars that you can put that towards buying new furniture, renovating your kitchen and bathrooms or throwing that all important housewarming party (or more responsible uses like paying down your mortgage).
Secondly, our backgrounds are different than traditional real estate agents. We are a Stanford MBA and a Yale Law JD, who have also worked at some of the top management consulting, law and private equity firms (Bain & Company, Boston Consulting Group, Wachtell and Bain Capital). We leverage our data-driven, customer-oriented experiences to deliver a more insightful, analytical and responsive home buying experience.
Thirdly, Unlocked has built custom analytical tools to bring data, insight and transparency to the key buying decision points and streamlined the buying process. For every home you’re interested in, we provide our Custom Valuation Report, an easy-to-interpret spreadsheet of recent comparable transactions, competing listings and third-party valuations, as well as our Disclosure Review Summary, a comprehensive summary of the 200+ pages of disclosures.
All-in-all, we’ve designed the buying experience that we would have wanted when we bought our homes, and we’re sure you’ll love it, just like our current and past clients have (check out our Yelp reviews).
One of our licensed real estate agents personally leads each transaction and will be your day-to-day point of contact throughout your home buying journey. We work closely as a team, and are able to jump in for each other if and when you have a time-sensitive request.