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Sokrat Arzumanyan knows better than anyone how grueling, stressful and time-consuming the home buying process is. He has been dominating California real estate for over a decade because of his commitment to providing quality service. Sokrat is one of the best real estate brokers in the country and ranks in the top 1% of real estate brokers. And his credentials speak for themselves: he is a Certified Negotiation Expert with 15 years of experience as a real estate developer and 10 years of experience as a loan broker. He is also certified as an International Property Specialist and an Investor Agent Specialist, and is working on certification as a Commercial Investment Member. On top of those, Sokrat has nearly a dozen other certifications, making him one of the most well-educated and savvy real estate brokers in the country.
Sokrat is a One-Stop Shop for Real Estate.
He is known as a one-stop shop for real estate because he really can do it all. In fact, he does by himself what it would normally take 6 or 7 people to do. That saves his clients, time, money, and stress. His diverse clientele and business portfolio are unmatched because he possesses the ability to get his clients the exact houses they want for the best price. Sokrat makes his clients feel at ease because he explains every step of the home buying process and takes on a lot of the stressful paperwork for them. These are just a few of the reasons why my wife and I chose to go with him as our real estate broker. Here is my story about working with the outstanding Sokrat Arzumanyan.
My wife and I had been married for about a year, and we had finally outgrown our apartment in the city. I was a staff writer at a well-known magazine at the time and she had just finished law school. She decided to take a break before studying for the bar, so this was the perfect time for her to take the lead in our search for a new home. I was happy to leave her to it because I heard that home buying, especially for first-time homebuyers, was a grueling process and I was slammed at work.
How it all started.
My wife decided to go with a friend from high school, who had her real estate license for a few years at the time. I was a bit apprehensive when I first heard the news because it seemed like she picked the first person she thought of and picked her out of ease, rather than finding the best person for the job. But I did not let it stress me out, and I figured everything would be just fine. It didn’t take long before my wife started complaining about her friend’s lack of effort and knowledge of the real estate industry. My wife and I knew that we wanted to buy a house, but we did not know where to start looking. When my wife presented her friend with our price range and the type of house we were looking for, her friend had no idea where to start. She told me that she and her friend sat in a parking lot looking up houses on the phone. I am no real estate expert, but I already knew that was the wrong approach. Then she told me that her friend had no idea how to deal with the bank to see what kind of loan we qualified for. How was she even a real estate agent? My wife told her friend that the arrangement was not working out and they went their separate ways. Now, we were back to square one. The two of us were disappointed because it seemed like we would have to do a ton of work during our home search.
I decided I would do a little research myself, so I asked for a referral from a good friend of mine, who had recently purchased a house in Burbank, California. He introduced me to his real estate and loan broker, Sokrat Arzumanyan. After looking at Sokrat’s website for several minutes, we met with him in his office in La Cañada. He had a long list of certifications as well as houses sold at a variety of prices and in many different areas. Looking through his testimonials and customer reviews, I saw that Sokrat was a highly skilled and well-liked real estate broker. I showed his website to my wife, and we both agreed that we should hire him as our real estate and loan broker.
When we met with Sokrat, he was warm, friendly, and easy to talk to. He told us that he would be happy to help us and invited us to his other office in Glendale. We arrived at Sokrat’s real estate firm, and he was already standing out front to greet us. Inside, we saw that he had about a dozen or so other people working for him. My wife and I followed him to his back office and sat down with him. After exchanging pleasantries and giving each of us a cold bottle of water, Sokrat asked, “What is your price range?” When we told him what we’d been thinking, he did a soft inquiry of our credit and discovered that we could qualify for a better rate and thus afford a house in a higher price range than we’d thought.
Next, Sokrat showed us 6 different homes within our price range that checked off most of our requirements for our first home. Two of those six were homes that no other real estate agent at other firms had access to because they weren’t released on the market yet. The reason Sokrat had access was that he works for the very well-known real estate firm, Coldwell Banker Hallmark Realty. He explained that Coldwell Banker Hallmark releases listings to their own agents first before releasing them on the Multiple Listing Service for the rest of the world to see. This gives the agents an opportunity to give their clients an early-access first first look before others even know the home is for sale. We looked over the properties that he showed us and chose 2 that we were interested in. He also told us that he had one more property in mind that he wanted us to view. My wife and I were prepared to go look at the houses that day, and so was Sokrat. So, we hopped in our cars and made our way to the first property.
The first house we went to looked amazing. It seemed perfect at first, but Sokrat noticed rotted drywall in two of the bedrooms and throughout the basement. He informed us that it would cost over $50,000 just to repair it. His experience as a real estate developer was key in this situation, because my wife and I have no knowledge of construction or home repair. Had Sokrat not pointed out this costly problem, we might have bought the home and been stuck dealing with the expensive repair.
When we arrived at the second house, my wife and I got excited because of how nice the neighborhood was; but the house seemed a bit small. Sokrat agreed and told us that it was way overpriced. Then, we arrived at the 3rd house: 3 beds, 5 baths at the exact price we were looking for. Sokrat told us that he found this house before we arrived at his office that day. Now that we had a potential home option, it was time to write an offer. As a first-time homebuyer, this contract was overwhelming and foreign for us. But after Sokrat went over the residential purchase agreement and summarized the key points for us, we instantly signed the contract. There were multiple offers on this home, so we were worried someone might outbid us. My wife was keen on getting this house, and Sokrat could sense that. He did everything in his power to negotiate the best deal for us and got our offer accepted! We were just a few signatures away from becoming first-time homeowners.
The next thing we needed to sort out was the home loan. Of course, Sokrat is a loan broker and already had us pre-approved. He was able to help us apply for the loan right away. It did not take long before we heard back from the bank. We were approved!
Upon having our offer accepted and our loan moving forward, Sokrat also informed us about home inspections. He explained the importance of a general, termite and sewer inspection. He was present at all the inspections and even negotiated some credit towards repairs for the home! Sokrat was able to walk us through this entire process and educated us on every single aspect that we had questions about. He didn’t miss a single call from us no matter how late we called. He was always available via text or phone call.
Fast forward 30 days and the keys to the house were in our hands and we were homeowners! Sokrat even hired movers for us and paid for it himself. This guy was truly amazing.
After we closed escrow, one would think that our time with Sokrat was one done, however he knew we were thinking of remodeling parts of the home and making improvements throughout the house. Due to his extensive knowledge and experience in construction, he had access to multiple resources we never would have known about. He introduced us to a contractor who worked with us to fit our budget.
My wife and I came into this as first-time homebuyers who had no idea where to begin. We had a rough time at the beginning dealing with a real estate agent who was in over her head, to say the least. Fortunately, we were able to find Sokrat. His goal was to make this process as smooth and stress-free as possible. He did literally everything for us, making sure to take care of all aspects of the purchase and keep us up to date on everything. With him being so well-versed and certified in several different areas, we did not have to deal with a bunch of different people during this process. We only had to correspond with Sokrat, and he took care of the rest, which made everything a lot less stressful.
We are so fortunate to have found Sokrat and worked with him. We have been in our house for 3 months now and we could not be happier. Just last week, we had Sokrat over for dinner and he could not have been a more gracious guest. We talked for hours and could tell that he was so proud of us being new homeowners and proud that he was the one who facilitated that. We recommend Sokrat to anyone looking to buy a home, no matter your price range. He will make sure you get the house that you want for the best possible deal. He is a real estate broker who cares about more than just the sale. He ensures that his clients are happy, comfortable, and well-educated in the process of buying a home. So, if you are in California and looking to buy a home, make sure you contact Sokrat Arzumanyan. You will be happy you did!
