Our experience buying a home with Jen Clark was absolutely outstanding. From the start of the looking process to the very last Docusign at the closing, Jen was thoughtful, thorough and best of all patient. She just seemed to think of EVERYTHING as we went through the process. She gently guided us away from what would have been bad decisions for us and helped us see our "diamond in the rough." Admittedly, we're not easy clients. We're indecisive. We change our minds constantly. I get bored easily and just want to pick any house to end the process. Jen just kept reminding us of what we told her we were looking for at the beginning and bringing us to houses that met that criteria. Lastly, Jen has a wonderfully artistic talent and vision that she uses to help you beyond the buying process. She suggests paint colors, small renovations, and even bigger renovations to get you to the home that you really want to call your own. She has our highest recommendation! read more

This review is for The Home Co's interior design service only (not staging or realtor services). We had Jen come out to our home to discuss hiring her to help redecorate our home after I'd read many positive reviews online. Jen was super friendly, knowledgeable and had a bunch of great ideas and suggestions. We hired her! After we'd signed the contract and agreed to a retainer, she told us someone else from her team would actually be our main point of contact. We were bummed because we thought we'd be working directly with Jen, but probably our fault for not asking specifically what the arrangement would be. We figured anyone on her team would be just as awesome as her. Unfortunately, as soon as the design process started I realized that was not the case. Our designer was very nice, but seemed very inexperienced and unclear on which steps were supposed to happen when. We'd have long zoom calls (that I was getting billed for) where I tried to explain my design style and what I was looking for. After each call, I'd panic a little as I just felt no confidence coming from her, and was not assured she'd actually be able to help guide me through the home design process. I even called Jen after one call and asked her "am I this designer's very first client?", because the woman seemed so nervous and unsure when working with me. Jen said she'd been with her team for a year and a half... hmm.. After I received my floor plans I knew it was time to pull the plug. The furniture layout made no sense for my space, the measurements were wrong, etc. I called Jen to complain and she more or less said "we would have gotten the measurements right if you paid us for more hours". So after many many hours of working with The Home Co, I canceled the contract and have nothing to show for it. Just bad floor plans and a uninspired mood board. I still have 2 hours left from my retainer and have reached out to Jen twice to try and utilize that time sourcing at least one item for my home so it's not all a complete waste. She continues to either ignore my emails, or when I follow up she'll say "I'll get back to you" but it's been over a week now and I'm feeling no love. This was my first time working with a professional designer and probably my last - too disappointing :-( read more

Jen didn't deliver and kept our money anyway. Even after she agreed to refund us $250, she actually never completed the refund and it's been weeks. She came for an in home consultation, didn't provide any ideas or insights at that meeting but promised to return in a few days with a scope of work and project proposal. We were ok with waiting to hear ideas and see her suggestions, but they never came. Instead, she took the consultation fee and then dropped us as clients. When we were confused and wanted to understand more about what happened, she never returned phone calls...forcing us to have a convoluted conversation that unfolded in emails. She insulted us for even asking for our money back saying, "our request validated her decision" not to work with us. And this was one of several personal insults she threw our way. I've never met a consultant like her. She may have enough consultative talent to handle a staging, but she lacks the skills it takes to interact collaboratively with clients who want to live with the interior design she suggests. read more

We used the Home Co. to stage our condo prior to selling it. It is a large open plan room with 30 windows, and can be challenging to decorate. Natalia Avalos staged the entire apartment, and it was fabulous! Sold in a week. Painless process, easy online contract and payment. I'd highly recommend them for staging should you choose to sell. read more

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Wow! The Home Co. team did an amazing job prepping our home for sale. They worked with our real estate company and truly transformed our home into the best possible version of itself. They thoughtfully updated our home to make it shine and staged it beautifully. They are knowledgeable and professional and truly had an eye on our return on investment---we trusted their opinion about what was worth doing, and we feel absolutely great about the results! read more

Painless remodel of my kitchen. I had heard horror stories of remodeling gone wrong. Jen, Maya and Natalia alleviated all my fears and my remodel was done with ease! They were so easy to work with and I am so happy with the outcome! Totally recommend them! read more

My wife and I had an incredible experience working with Jennifer and HIGHLY recommend her to anyone looking to buy a house in this difficult market. Before we found Jennifer, we put offers in on four houses and didn't get a single counter. Once we began working with Jennifer, we found our house, made the offer and got it! She knew exactly what to do to get us to the top of the list. It was amazing. She made the process easy, knows the East Bay real estate market better than anyone we've met. She's incredibly responsive, honest and a great communicator. She was there for our late night calls throughout the purchasing process and is still super responsive to all of our first time home owner questions. When we were torn on what color to paint our house months after we moved in, she came by to look at the colors we were deciding between. In addition to being a phenomenal real estate agent, she's an outstanding designer. We feel so fortunate that we found her and thankful that she has been so supportive. read more

My husband hired Jennifer to buy and sell our 1st home in Oakland. Jennifer and her team were great. Very hard working and managed to neogitate the best sales price both times! read more

My husband and I had the pleasure of working with Jen and Glennie on the search for a home in the Bay Area.  We came across their online portfolio of home makeovers and then had the pleasure of touring some of their remodeled houses during open houses. We knew right away that the only people we wanted to work with on any fixer-uppers was the Home Co. Jen brought the same attention to detail evident in their remodels into helping us understand the market and the intricacies of each neighborhood.  Because of their hard work, we are happily sitting in our new living room writing this review. Even after the sale, they are quick to respond to any questions or concerns we have - and they are especially patient with us as first time homebuyers. I can't say enough about how wonderful The Home Co is and full-heartedly recommend them to any prospective home buyers! read more

Working with Jen has proved to be one of my best financial decisions to date. I decided to take on a very ambitious $300K+ renovation of my Rockridge home during avery stressful time in my life (newly pregnant and relocating out of market). Thanks to Jen's business acumen, tireless work ethic, second to none design sense and intimate knowledge of the Rockridge marketplace, I managed to complete the project under a tight deadline and yield a final sale that was $500K+ over asking (not a typo)! In the end, there is absolutely no way I could have done any of this without Jen. She ended up managing my contractors and lining up her own in order to meet the open house deadline. If you have the good fortune to work with Jen, consider yourself very lucky. read more

Jennifer Montague and The Home Co team recently helped my wife and I with our first home purchase in the East Bay. We were initially drawn to The Home Co due to their expertise in not only home buying, but in home design and renovation. They bring a unique skill set by combining traditional real estate brokerage with the vision and knowledge to see how a property in need of a lot of work could be transformed into your forever home. After working with The Home Co, what stood out most was their teamwork. We always had a reliable resource to tap with home searches, questions about neighborhoods, valuation, etc. We also found their negotiating suggestions to be unique and effective when push came to shove. read more

I highly recommend Jennifer and the Home Co team! She was extremely knowledgeable about the market and EXTREMELY tenacious. This was our first home purchase and Jennifer was patient with all our questions and our constant shift in wish list items for our new home. Once the deal was closed she was able to turn around all inspections and paperwork in record time with high level of detail. She has a keen eye for real estate and design so not only will she help you buy a home, but she will give you tips on areas of improvement to help your investment grow! I truly appreciate everything she did for us and will continue to recommend her to friends, family and colleagues! read more

Jen is absolutely awesome! I met with her to go over my goals for the sale and what services she provides. Everything was straightforward and clear. She arranged for the remodeling (spent about $25K), staging, open house, and sale. I really didn't have to do much of anything but sign a few documents. From the time remodeling was complete to getting bids was about 2 weeks, so super fast. And she got us slightly over 125% over asking price. Made the remodel cost back easily. Didn't even feel like I sold my property since it was so easy. read more

Jennifer made a huge difference in our home buying process. As a first time home buyer I was afraid I was going to miss something in the process or be mislead by someone out to make a buck. She asked me to email her the links to any houses we liked so she could get a feel for our preference. When our offer was accepted, Jennifer was patient with us. She sent emails with detailed timelines of all the steps in the process (even emailed a home buyers guide) and responded quickly to my questions. Jennifer strongly recommended I attend the home inspections so I could get all of my questions answered and get an intimate understanding of the home we were buying. She made me feel at ease with the process. Jennifer was a wonderful negotiator. She was able to get our offer accepted under asking price in a very desirable location. When something was off in one of the inspection reports provided by the seller, she called everyone (selling realtor, inspector, my wife and I) together to meet at the property to review and understand what the inspector was looking at so we could completely understand the situation and how it affected the value of the property. Ultimately she was able to negotiate further discounts in the closing cost. I am a very hard person to impress. Jennifer EXCEEDED my expectations by a huge margin. I would recommend her to everyone I know and will work with her again. read more

As sellers, we deeply appreciated Jen's expertise in marketing and design. Her company's staging was beautiful, and photography, website, drone footage(!), and video were all top notch. There's definitely a reason she has a cult following, with buyers competing heavily for her properties. Scheduling and communication were occasionally challenging, but that's just a reality of working with a busy, in-demand team! Our home sold for well over asking price, and we couldn't have been more thrilled. Thank you, Jen and team! read more

I HIGHLY recommend Jennifer as an agent and designer. She helped us to find our home within a month of working with her! We had been looking for a few years, and she was open to hearing our past experiences with the market, which we appreciated, because we felt she sincerely wanted to get to know us to better help us. We gave her an area we were interested in, our wish-list, and budget. Before Sundays, she always gave us a list of houses that were on the market, making note of specific homes she thought would be valuable to check-out. But she was also very open and responsive to houses we saw that were not on the list. We checked-in with each other after open houses to share what we liked and didn't like, and she was always so understanding and attentive through the whole process. Jennifer really understands the difficulties that first-time homeowners experience. She really validated our concerns and fears, and answered all our questions. For our first offer, we were nowhere near the winning bid. We were disappointed, but Jennifer helped us to remain positive. For our second offer, we were SO close, but lost due to a contingency factor. Here was a great learning opportunity, which we took onto our 3rd offer. So for our third offer, again, Jennifer never pushed us to bid more than we were comfortable with, but helped us to put a more strategic offer, looking at the situation from different perspectives, and ultimately get our first home! What we appreciated was that Jennifer allowed us to lead the process, only guiding us along the way. We also appreciated that she made every effort to work with our schedule, meeting us to show us the home a few times and to walk us through what we should look for. Jennifer responds to emails quickly. She addresses all questions/thoughts/concerns. She explains confusing information clearly. She is very well-informed of the market, and will provided ideas based on whether we wanted a house as an investment or a long-term home. She also connected us to a broker that was also an integral part of our offer package. And now we continue to work with Jennifer to design our kitchen, family and dining rooms with her kitchen designer (KitchenSync) and husband (Steve, founder/contractor of RFC Renovations & Design). Jennifer has vision. She has been able to successfully help us to see potential in a boring looking house. We are not yet complete with renovations, but there is no doubt in our minds that it will be beautiful and be home to us. Thank you SOOOO much Jennifer! =D read more

WOW. What can I say that will give the proper recognition that Jen and team deserve for the project they completed for us in July. As a former real estate agent and active real estate investor, I have extremely high standards for condo renovations for sale. For this project, I spent hours researching modern home renovations, staging, online marketing expertise, and selling for my investment condo in Oakland. When I stumbled upon Jen on the website houzz, I thought I was dreaming that everything I needed for my outdated condo was provided by 1 team. Too good to be true... Well, it wasn't a dream! Jen and her team handled every single step of the renovation process and preparing my condo for sale while I was traveling overseas. I also live on the East Coast, which I thought would be a challenge with me not physically being there for various reasons, but at no point did I have to consider jumping on a plane to Oakland for this project. Unbelievable really. The project was completed on time, within our budget. The Home Co has also mastered the online real estate marketing aspect of buying and selling a property. Our condo had the most views for comparable condos on websites Redfin, Zillow, and Trulia. And we were featured on Curbed SF! We received multiple offers and Jen handled it with ease. I will recommend her to my friends residing in the East Bay. read more

Jennifer helped us find the perfect condo, in the location and price range that we were looking. She provided thoughtful and professional representation throughout the negotiations, and we were thrilled with her service. Two years later our family's needs changed and we sought Jennifer's help to sell the condo. She coached us extensively on ways we could stage the space ourselves to better position it for sale. She also had a strategy for our listing price, and when to lower. We had an excellent offer in 6 days! Two weeks into escrow, we had a family crisis: our twins were born 12 weeks prematurely. My husband and I were nearly impossible to reach, as we were in the hospital intensive care unit around the clock. We handed the reins to Jennifer, and she handled much of the negotiations and inspections on our behalf. When we look back to this time, it is with sincere appreciation and gratitude that we recall Jennifer's sensitivity and support in how she handled our transaction. We would have been lost without her guidance, direction and management. Thank you so much Jennifer! read more

Best decision we ever made. Jen is an all-star, truly next-level with a brilliant, modern approach to the entire real estate process. We can't believe we got so lucky to find her. read more