John Hokkanen → Encinitas Real Estate

About Us:

Our Team Has Many Skills - My professional work began as a software engineer. By the age of 17, I had begun working in the aerospace industry developing avionics software. However, a desire to expand my horizons eventually led me to get a study Political Theory and then go to the University of Virginia School of Law. While practicing as a litigator for the US Government, I began to explore how technology could help professional service providers (lawyers at that time) and redefine what kinds of services they provided to clients. After we moved to Encinitas and my wife began her real estate business, I left the legal field to use my technology and Internet skills to build her business and then our team of real estate agents. My focus is on marketing and technology, both of which play an important role in how we service both buyer and seller clients.

Home Sellers - Sell High & Sell Quickly - The home sales market rises and falls. In any market, selling a home for the highest possible price within a reasonable timeframe means finding the one buyer who loves the house. In addition, a listing agent must work with buyers' agents with professionalism and integrity to conclude transactions succssfully. Home sellers must know their agent has the personnel, experience and tools to minimize delays and get the job done on time.

Home Buyers - Locate the Ideal Purchase, Negotiate the Price, and Avoid Pitfalls - With so much money on the line, home buyers want and need to avoid any mistakes. They need to find the home that meets their specific needs so they are happy and do not have to move. They need to negotiate the right price to minimize loss if the market falls. They need to make sure that they know what they are buying and are well-represented so they are not surprised once they move in. Home buyers must know that their agent has the knowledge and experience to be their advisor and advocate.

Successful real estate teams proactively find ways to sell homes at higher prices for sellers and to locate and negotiate ideal purchases for buyers. Agents who passively watch the market without strengthening their internal resources fall behind. The key is a comprehensive approach that weaves skills, technologies, and resources to respond to an evolving sales market. As one of the strongest real estate teams in San Diego County, the Surf The Turf Team continually positions itself to meet the needs of today's and tomorrow's home sellers and buyers. Our array of core competencies and breadth of professional services are among the most comprehensive in the United States.

A good example of how we provide exceptional value to our clients are our brochures. Typically, we print 5,000 brochures for every listing that we take. Some people ask, "What in the world do you do with 5,000 brochures?" The answer is simple: Get them into the community! Selling a home is about maximum exposure of the property to as many potential buyers as possible.

Click here to see some other samples. Our Experts
We have built our team around area expertise, and that is why we do not let just any agent join our ranks. Just as law firms have partners who are experts in corporate, tax, or family law, we have experts who specialize by location and each of us represents both sellers and buyers. Thus, you work with an agent who knows your area of interest. Because we are a team, you get the expertise needed even when selling in one area and buying in another.

Areas of Expertise

FOR SELLERS FOR BUYERS Over the past five years we have invested heavily in our business and have unique skills and assets that allow us to deliver high-end services at a reasonable fee. Our team’s strength begins with our people. We have a full team of full-time practicing real estate agents, assistants, transaction/follow-up coordinators, and strong relationships with loan officers, escrow officers, and title insurance reps. We have licensed real estate brokers on our team, agents that speak fluent Spanish, former loan officers who can teach about financing options, a former professional photographer, and a lawyer/engineer who is a marketing wizard. Finally, all of our brochures and marketing are designed and developed internally. Consequently, we can accept a listing with confidence that a complete array of marketing materials will be ready within days. Below is an example of the kind of services that we offer to sellers.

Standard Listing
Commission: 5%, shared 50/50 with buyer's agent
Marketing Package
Professional architectural photo shoot
Aerial photographs of front of home and community features (pools, greenspaces, etc.)
5,000 four-page, full-color brochures
1,000 home tour DVD videos
2,500 door hangers (for delivering brochures into
target areas and move-up neighborhoods)
Aggressive web site marketing - We spend
thousands of dollars on advertising
Virtual Tours (360° photo views)
Video streaming of entire guided home tour video
Prominent positioning at SurfTheTurf web sites
Craigslist and other web site postings
Property presented at broker caravan "pitch"
session and held open for agents to preview
Open houses as often as is practicable
Other marketing as determined

Enhanced Listing
Commission: (based on scope of enhancements)
Additional Marketing Options
Additional home tour DVDs
Custom mailing campaign
Custom print advertising campaign
Custom Internet advertising optimized for
specific search terms
Custom-labeled water bottles for events

Other agents charge 5%, 6%, or even 7%. Only our team offers these services, and we do so for a modest 5% commission....

Call us today--We will be happy to meet, answer your questions and evaluate your home’s value.

No Pressure - No Obligation

Example of one of our aerial photos:

Click here to see a sample DVD video

Many real estate teams have one agent (or a couple) who heads the team and handles all or most of the listings. Because these senior agents are busy with multiple sellers, they often hire inexperienced “buyer’s agents.”

Our team works differently! We are organized by area (e.g., Yvonne is our expert in Oceanside, Karen for San Marcos, etc.), and every one of our agents represent both sellers and buyers. You will see that reflected in our web site with different experts on different sites. Our buyers benefit because they work with senior agents with a lot of area knowledge, negotiating skills, and strong buyer advocacy. When we represent you as a buyer, our duty runs completely to you as our client, and that means that we negotiate as hard for you as we do when we represent a seller.

Our clients love our team-based approach because it means that someone is always available to see property, hold an open house, or answer questions. Plus, our clients get to draw upon the collective knowledge of the entire team. For example, when one of Chris’s clients wants to shop in Encinitas or Carlsbad, the client is welcome to speak directly with Margaret and draw upon her deep area knowledge. While most clients prefer to work with just one agent and draw upon another team members’ expertise, clients also have the option of working with different agents for different areas!

Our web sites have tools for buyers that are unrivaled by other sites. See my Carlsbad and Encinitas web site as an example. We understand that buyers want great tools for shopping on-line, and our web sites have the best tools anywhere. For example, our homes-by-school-boundary maps allows parents to compare schools and the homes within their boundaries at the same time! Here are some other tools that buyers like:

- Fixer Upper Lists - Motivated Seller Homes
- No HOA Fee Homes - Golf Course Properties
- 55+ Community Maps - Not-on-Internet Homes
- West-of-I-5 Homes - Value-Pick Listings

and our exclusive Crystal Ball Home Search

Here is a small example of one of our maps. The push-pins are color-coded by price. The number on the push pin tells you how many bedrooms. One need only click on a pushpin to get all the details.

Click to see the real map.

People have asked about our DVDs and video technologies. We have been producing DVD home tours of our listings for years, and our innovation in this area has shown us that DVDs are instrumental in many ways:

More Previews
Since the DVD is placed on every brochure, each person who drives by may preview the home in the comfort of his or her living room.

Easier Access
Accessibility of the home is important, and DVD video makes a difference when a home is less accessible due to pets, sickness or other reasons.

Compelling Stories
Because the story told through the video is entirely under our control, we can present a home in the most compelling way. This can even involve the filming of local features, like parks and community pools, or interviewing of neighbors.

Involving Others
DVD video allows a potential buyer to share the home with others whose opinions matter (e.g., parents, friends, etc.) and allows the buyer to revisit the home again and again. This helps buyers share and maintain their excitement for a home.

John Hokkanen
Broker, SurfTheTurf.com, Inc.
A California Real Estate Brokerage

Testimonials

Returning to live in San Diego County after 15 yrs absence required some readjustment. We located EncinitasCarlsbad.com through the Web and found it an invaluable tool for optimizing our SD home search from the LA Area. We were able to select homes which fit our criteria, to explore the areas we were interested in, and to make best use our visits to San Diego. Margaret & Barbara provided great service in all aspects of the home search, negociations and purchase (not to mention recommendations on local restaurants & other amenities) and John provided excellent service as well as a more-than-competitive loan. I cannot imagine a more effective way for folks outside of the area to locate and purchase a San Diego home.
Gene

A long distance purchase from the other side of the globe? No problem for Margaret Hokkanen. We were originally drawn to Margaret through her comprehensive web site. She responded immediately to our emails, which was a good indicator of the responsive service we would subsequently experience from ten time zones away. We visited Encinitas during our home leave from US Government service posted to Egypt, where Margaret and her partner Barbara spent the day giving us a flavor of the area. Once back in Egypt, Margaret made good use of technology: responses to our emails were fast, lots of digital pictures arrived for houses of interest, and documents were exchanged as email attachments, pdf files and scans, and, when necessary, old fashioned FAX. Margaret quickly got a feel for what we wanted, and within a hour of hitting the MLS we had data sheets on houses of interest. Margaret provided comprehensive answers to our questions, carefully explaining the unique features of the California real estate market and her approach and negotiating strategy. She provided resource information about the 1031 exchange process and linked us with a 1031 facilitator. Margaret knows the neighborhoods well and could easily point out plusses and minuses of a property, including the tone of the neighborhood. She understood the challenges that a ten hour time difference introduced and ensured that the sellers also appreciated this.
Robert

John's note about Robert: Our web sites were able to provide Robert with the kind of information that he wanted and needed from half way around the world.

We shopped around for different agents, and I can say that until we met Margaret and heard about Margaret and heard about the kind of marketing that she does that we were generally quite disappointed [in agents]. So, when we heard what she did and we saw the marketing material, we decided that was a good approach...Everything from the preparation of the house to the preparation of the marketing, the open houses all worked out extremely well. Margaret made herself available at any time, she answers the phone, and we had open houses whenever we felt that it was appropriate. And so I would recommend her and her services and the services of her team members to anyone who wants to sell a house[.]"
Thomas

John's note about Thomas: I met Thomas outside our real estate office where he was looking at our brochures. I took the time to get one of our brochures with a DVD and handed it to him, suggesting that he take a look at it if he was considering the sale of his home. He called Margaret later that day.

The result of using [the SurfTheTurf team] was an infinite amount more of exposure on the market due to the DVD house tour that they made for us....The pictures on the brochure were superb. It was not just the one little picture to show what the house
looked like. It was a big splashy thing that made it look like one of the very expensive million and a half dollar houses being sold somewhere. Just the feedback and continual contact with them as a team. It was regular and we were never left wondering what was going on....What we realized as we went through [the selling] process was that the support that they gave us and the help they gave us they made things very easy for us....They let us know what to expect along the way and they delivered on all of that. For us, it was very easy. The best part for us is that they sold our house very quickly. Maybe we paid a little bit more over a discount broker but we got the result that we wanted. We're very happy.

Jo & Richard