Sally Han - Eastside West Realty

Sally Han is a 25-year veteran Alameda Realtor.

Host Scott Piehler talks with Sally about her experience in East Bay real estate, what makes Alameda the unique market it is, and what forces are currently driving the market. Also discussed: the keys to being a successful buyer or seller, and the advantages of some well-applied feng shui.

Show note: This episode originally aired on KCSM-HD2 on Sunday, July 19, 2026

Full show archive for all past episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAlamedaConnection

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Good morning, and welcome to the Alameda Connection on KCSM HD2. I'm your host, Scott Peeler. If you live in Alameda or you've thought about moving to Alameda, you've probably noticed one thing. The Alameda real estate market is just like the Bay Area real estate market, except with a few added quirks and foibles. My guest this morning is realtor Sally Hahn. Sally's been an East Bay realtor with a focus on Alameda for 25 years. We'll use that experience to talk about the various market forces that are driving real estate here in the Bay Area's Island City. We'll also talk about just what it takes to be either a successful seller or buyer in one of the Bay Area's quirkiest real estate markets. Oh, and we'll also talk a little bit of Feng Shui. That's Sally Hahn, realtor. This morning, the Alameda Connection, right here on KCSMHD2. Well, good morning, Sally, and welcome to the Alameda Connection.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Well, hello, Scott, and thank you so much for inviting me to be with you today. I'm absolutely honored and excited to chat with you today.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

New Yorker, eh? Which which borough?

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Since I moved from New York when I was still a baby, the story I like to tell is that I lived in the Bowery the morning that my parents walked downstairs and every car on the street had been torched. They decided it was time to move to the burbs. So from that point on, I lived and grew up in Rockland County. Okay. Most notably uh Nyack on the Hudson River. Okay. I have wonderful fond memories. And when I moved to the Bay Area, to Alameda in particular, I felt like there was distinct resonance between that town and here.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

You attended the Hackley School in Terrytown, Pennsylvania. The Northeast private school experience can be up, down, or I'd like to forget about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

At that time, I was going into seventh grade. Not a time when most kids want to be uprooted from their friends and their neighbors and all of that. But it was a time in our public schools where there was strikes going on. Kids were coming to school with guns. It was not a time where I necessarily felt the safest. That was a time when my parents decided I think we need to intervene because a strike meant we would be home alone. And my experience there was phenomenal. I have lifelong friendships.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Were you a day student or a boarder?

SPEAKER_00 2:35

At that time, there was only five-day boarding for boys. Okay. So I was a day student, but because I lived across a toll bridge, it would be similar to living, you know, commuting to San Francisco or to San Mateo. My mother had to drive us to school because we didn't initially get into the bus. We would go to school and then after school, we'd have sports. I played field hockey, basketball, lacrosse. I left three teeth on the field hockey uh field. As one does. Right? So wear your mouth guard. I would wait and do homework and wait for my father to get off of work and take the train into Terrytown and then pick us up. Even though I was a day student, it was a long day. It was definitely a time where I felt really safe to be curious and to learn. So it was it was a good move for me.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

You went to college at Franklin and Marshall in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Sociology. What led you to sociology?

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Because at the time, whatever the prereq was for psychology, it probably involved something I or didn't want to take or wasn't very adept at. But I think it had to do with my curiosity about people and culture. What brought you West?

SPEAKER_01 3:51

When was it and why?

SPEAKER_00 3:52

After college, I spent a year in DC and then a year in Atlanta. I was sort of drifting a bit. My parents divorced just as I was going off to college. Coming back after college, I walked through the front door and my my parents basically said, Our house is on the market. So you better, you know, make some plans. I found an ad. I contacted them and they let me interview in Manhattan for a job in DC. And then I moved in with some sorority sisters. So for the next couple of years, I was just doing entry-level roles. The rest of my family had started to migrate west. Okay. And I thought, all right, let's turn a page and start something new. My joke is I was born in New York City, but my soul's from California.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

Okay. I can completely relate. I was born on Long Island and very comfortable here. You are co-owner with your husband with Elmwood Stationers. This is just a little fascinating side note to me because that business goes back to 1966. Your ownership starts in 97. What's the story there? How do you wind up on the West Coast with a stationer shop?

SPEAKER_00 4:57

My husband and I at that time had a young baby. He and I were both in tech working in companies on the peninsula. And we made a very conscious decision that we wanted to be in a situation where we actually raised our kids. And what that meant was we wanted to be there in the morning. We wanted to be there when they came home from school. We wanted to be present. And we could see that a traditional corporate path that we both were raised in really wasn't going to do the job for us. And my husband's family had a connection with a gentleman who had three stationary businesses and he was going to sell them. We decided to take a huge leap of faith in being entrepreneurs. It allowed me to have some flexibility with the schedule, with raising our son. I learned more about stationary in a very short time than I ever knew existed. But most importantly, it was my husband and my first entree into being part of a community, a business community. The Elmwood business community, like many, has its characters, its quirks. That was the beginning. And next year in 2027, we'll we will be celebrating 30 years. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

And you have how many locations?

SPEAKER_00 6:22

And we have two locations College and Ashby, and then also in Lafayette. And they're both called Elmwood Stationers.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

Okay. What led to the transition into Realty?

SPEAKER_00 6:33

My husband Andrew and I decided at a certain point that as much as we enjoyed working together at our shops, because we bought the stationery store, then a year later, we bought a second store called Surprise, which still is in business on Piedmont Avenue, which is a gift store. And gift versus stationary are very different. And we decided: wouldn't it be great to diversify in such a way where we would have two different streams of income, but that they would both be complementary as far as our schedules and that they're both deeply rooted in community. I started out by reaching out to my mother's realtor, who is Sally Rudloff. She and I both started out at Canaan Associates. This was back in the days where the three major real estate companies were Kanan Associates, Gallagher and Lindsay, and Harbor Bay Realty. Okay. There were others, but those were sort of the three. And just as Sally took me under her wing to be my mentor, she suffered uh an illness, which I'm happy to say that she went on to heal from and go on to great success and doing wonderful things with a boys and girls club. But because she was doing treatment, she passed me on to her business partner, Hannah Fry, and she was fabulous and immediately invited me to co-list with her on a property. That was a wonderful experience because I got to learn the ropes in real time. And I actually picked up the buyer from my not even an open house. I had an office walkthrough where we all walked through the house. A neighbor came down the street, and that was my first ever client. She remains a professional and resident in town, Patricia Scott, uh, an estate attorney. From that point on, it was just very organic. Most importantly, I learned such great fundamentals from ethics, professionalism, marketing, collegial relationships. I absolutely owe my career history to that foundation with Marie Kane, and I'm deeply grateful. I didn't necessarily tear up the charts as far as numbers, but from that day on, I was never not busy. I was very consistently and reliably working with clients, buyers and sellers, and was able to maintain that balance with my young family.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

Obviously, something sucked with Realty because you wound up doing a fair amount of work with the California Association of Realtors.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

So how that started was back to Marie Kane. She recommended to me and others early on to get involved in the local association. It allows you to practice skills of leadership and to let those who you desire to be transacting with see how you work. That seemed to work really well for me because that volunteer stint evolved to me becoming the president of the Alameda Association of Realtors, which is no longer in existence, but we lasted for, I believe, 90 years. When I continued my leadership with Bridge Association in Oakland and Berkeley, that led to 15 years of volunteer leadership, which is basically we come together, we discuss policy, we talk about our professional standards, ethics, and policy that supports homeownership.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

As a realtor broker associate, your name is connected with multiple firms, including East Sidewest. For those of us outside of the industry, how does that relationship work? Are you essentially an independent contractor who's aligned with other people? How does that function?

SPEAKER_00 10:29

That's a really important question for people to be familiar with because it is really confusing. The word broker is used interchangeably with agent often. And to be a broker requires a different level of education, oversight, and rule following. You can be a broker, an independent broker where you are a standalone business and can receive and pay commissions through transactions, or you can be an agent that is supervised by a broker. And in my case, because I have my broker's license, I'm a broker associate. That just means that I have the level of credentialing as a broker and I could step out on my own, but I am operating under the governance of a managing broker.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

Research has shown again and again and again that no matter how logical we think our purchasing decisions are, it doesn't matter if we're buying a pack of gum or a house. They're all emotional.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

Absolutely. I I couldn't agree more. And this comes into play especially with the conversation around staging and the investment of staging a home, preparing a home, and how illogical it feels sometimes to spend money in order to make money. I always love the analogy of coffee. Why do people go into a cafe, a Starbucks, and sit down and spend seven dollars on a cup of coffee when you can drive through McDonald's and get a really good quality cup of coffee for a buck? What I love about real estate is the nuance around it. It is very emotional. No transaction is alike, especially newer agents. When they talk about why they're motivated to go into real estate, um, when I would interview newer agents, they would say, I love architecture, I love homes, or I really want to make a lot of money. And my joke always is I really love the people. Don't always like them, but I love, but I love the aspect of the transaction that is about the people. Right. They come with a house of different conditions, they come often with a spouse or a different stakeholder, but each one is a separate campaign. It is like a theater production. Right. And there's a lot of creativity in that, and also a lot of opportunity to have a unique perspective into what's going on in their lives. And that's a privileged place to be. There's a lot of emotion, a lot of sentiment. Not always, sometimes it's just business. That's fascinating to me. It's sort of like some people like to thrift. I do my thrifting through my real estate.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

That's fair enough. What do you say to the potential first-time home buyer who is just overwhelmed? They think they've got the funds, they think they've got the financing, and they look up and they go, Oh my goodness, what am I going to possibly do? What do you say to guide them, to let them know that the process that they will survive?

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Like any overwhelming campaign, I think it's all about checking in always first, especially if it's a couple or more than one person, making sure that everyone is looking in the same direction. We don't all have to have the same criteria or the same style, but it's important to assure them that there is a path. And that path is unique. Yes, it can look formulaic on paper, but it is a custom path. I talk about styles of communication. I talk about what it looks like to look at homes. I break down all of the different components, and I don't ever say this is how it's going to go or this is how you should think or feel, but this is what's available. I do a lot of in my experience, this is what I've seen. And only you know your level of tolerance for risk, because certainly there are people who come to Alameda or to the East Bay from other parts of the country and they discover that we live in earthquake territory. You know, what is liquefaction?

SPEAKER_01 14:37

And what are that was never in my vocabulary three years ago. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

And what about crime and what about sea level rise? All of these things. And I do a very polite it is what it is.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

I can offer you ways to dig into your own risk tolerance. And if that doesn't work, then maybe this isn't the place for you.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

What do you think the biggest mistake buyers make is I don't see a lot of buyer mistakes.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Okay. I think that by the time I encounter buyers, they have generally worked their way to the place that they know why they're in front of me. And they're either deeply grateful for the excitement, the ability to be in a place where they can find their home or their investment and what have you. So I don't really see too much mistake other than perhaps not seeking out a realtor sooner. What I would say, and this is true for sellers too, it's never too early to talk to someone who has expertise that can benefit them in order for them to be as equipped as possible to make empowered decisions. You know, my joke often was when I meet with a new buyer is I just have to say, I apologize in advance for the market you find yourself in. It is not personal, but it will affect you deeply personally. And this is how we're going to not write 10 offers, but hopefully write one or maybe three, because when you write that successful offer, it's because you have done all of your own personal work that you can make your best offer possible.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

Is there a typical Alameda home buyer or is like three categories? Oh, this is this person who's from column A, buck, column B, column C.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

Alameda earns the right to be called a bedroom community. And the joke is people speed across the Bay Bridge to drive 25 miles an hour to Mayberry by the Bay. Right. The old joke was it's where San Franciscans go to breed. Because of all of that, now the complement of that is the grandparents. So we are starting to see the great migration from down the hill, the Oakland and Berkeley Hills, coming to Alameda. So we are definitely seeing both ends of the spectrum. And then, of course, we've seen some development on the West End lots of new construction condos, which are appealing to younger people, certainly those in tech or those who can afford it. I like to say we are an equal opportunity destination. Finish this answer.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

As an Alameda homeowner, you absolutely need to know a good X, Y, and Z. The people you gotta have on speed dial if you're gonna own a home in Alameda.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

You need a handy person if you live in a in an older home. Homes like that have nothing standard about them. Right. Next, I would say even if you just have a patio, a good drip irrigation resource.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Okay. At my other job at the Alameda Posts, every couple weeks I report on real estate. And I don't know if this is me, if this is a blip or a trend. I'm seeing more homes going for under lists, and they're usually at the lower end of the market. Is that a trend or is that a blip?

SPEAKER_00 18:02

We always have micro trends. Right. I do think that we are in a place right now where there's a certain level of uncertainty. We're seeing that in the rise of off-market listings, which means that there's a desire for someone to sell their home and they're not either ready to commit to the whole common practice of moving out, staging, what have you. They're not sure that that's gonna achieve their goal, or they just wanna kick the tires and see what their house might yield. And we've been riding sort of high for a good amount of time with values recovering. COVID was an anomaly where people who bought during COVID are now realizing how much equity they don't have. It is both a blip and a trend in the sense that every house can be marketed incorrectly and stagnate, in which case it's gonna go for less. Real estate is a nuanced business.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

I've been reading that particularly AI money is driving a lot of what's going on in San Francisco and the surrounding area. Are we seeing that here? Do we really have like two markets? We have sort of the Uber high-end Gold Coast showpiece and everybody else.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

We've always had sort of an overflow or splash from Silicon Valley and also from other countries. Okay. We have really close friends from Canada who were spending time regularly here and were considering purchasing and that type of potential buyer, maybe not happening as much, but certainly these spikes in earning, which equals buying capacity, absolutely affects us. And not necessarily just at the high end, because those folks can also buy income property. They can buy second homes and things like that. It remains to be seen. But yes, it does feel like the Uber high-end has behavior that is separate. I will just say that what I have seen in the last few years is an uptick in or a consistency in cash purchases that are infused with family cash or family buying capacity for the sake of the transaction, within plans of refinance and repayments later. So to me, it just shines a light and highlights how challenging our affordability is. And that's a whole, you know, that's a whole thing that is a struggle, certainly across California, but not just l not limited to California.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Let's talk inventory. Seller's market versus buyer's market hinges around four to five months. That's kind of where the dividing point is. If it's less than four months, it's a seller's market. More than four, it's a buyer's market. Where is Alameda right now?

SPEAKER_00 20:54

We never have enough inventory. Where there's more opportunity is in the condo space. Okay. It's still a seller's market. Even if properties stay on the market longer than the sort of prescribed 16 days, two weekends of open house and then an offer date, that doesn't mean it's not gonna sell in the next couple of weeks. It doesn't mean that it won't sell. Um, and it's not necessarily an indication of market shift. I don't see us looking at a balanced market anytime really soon. Are there deals to be had? So when people say deal, it's all relative and contextual. I do think that there is opportunity. It requires a tremendous amount of patience, aligning yourself with a good realtor resource who can bring not just what is published through the general feeds like Zillow and Redfin and what have you, but also talk to other colleagues. I have a client who needed a specialty property, a property that was on one level, a property that could. Be modified for a wheelchair. Those don't just come by for the plucking. I connected with another realtor who I've known for years who had a listing scheduled for the following year. And we were able to accelerate that schedule almost a year and make that happen. That's inventory creation.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

Most of the realtors I've met in Alameda seem to be pretty solid folks. I would imagine that Alameda's small town vibe is almost a vaccination against bad actors hanging around too long in this field.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

Alameda, and I would say, for the most part, the East Bay, in my experience, the quality of real estate professionals is very high. Anyone who stands a chance of longevity here knows that their reputation is what's at stake. I have nothing but great things to say about my experiences with other realtors. And yeah, are there stories and are there instances? Are there anomalies? There are in every in every industry, in every field.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

So what's Sally doing when she's not on the clock?

SPEAKER_00 23:00

I do a lot of yoga and yoga and Pilates. A new studio opened on the West End, Svastha Yoga. Ah yes. I am very active at Christ Episcopal Church for its homeless ministries in particular. During COVID was when we were fortunate enough to get a grant from the city to convert some space in our parish hall to create showers. And that was at a time when I stepped away briefly from management and was transitioning back into full-time sales. We needed a non-church official to, you know, a civilian to raise their hand to do that. And that's something that I'm really grateful to be able to have been involved in.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

We had John and Lisa on the show a while back from the program. Yeah. Just an amazing program.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

What's your favorite town in California that's not Elamuda?

SPEAKER_00 23:56

Healdsburg comes to mind.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

That town is a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

That town is a lot of fun. It's not too far. It's a place that we visit often on our way to other destinations. It's just really sweet. It has great wine. It has great thrifting.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

And one of the best cups of coffee I ever had was in Heelsburg. Really?

SPEAKER_00 24:19

Yeah. And it usually has pretty nice weather when I've been there, but Heelsburg is right up there.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

Your newsletter, you not only look at market trends, Feng Shui.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

After practicing real estate for 25 years, and I'm also very curious about spirituality, philosophy. Of course, I'm involved in my local faith community. But to me, Feng Shui is a beautiful opportunity to look at energy and how it's affected through the placement of objects. It's just a delightfully perfect way to infuse my real estate passion with the subtleties of adornment. And also, I have encountered challenges with selling properties and used feng shui experts to help me mitigate what are called in feng shui, when something is less than ideal, it can be called a poison arrow. So for example, and not to alarm anyone who this might fit, if you live at the end of a cul-de-sac, that is a place where energy will potentially pool or be stagnant. So that's just um one thing. I remember I had a really, really challenging listing where it was a rebuild after the fires in the Oakland Hills. And I inherited the listing because it got a little sticky uh between the other agent and it was it was complex. And I was young and ambitious and eager. And so I took this on and I hired a feng shui expert to help because the driveway was so severely angled that it was basically unusable. It was it was really tough. But in the end, it was really lovely because I connected with a local artist here in town, Ginny Parsons. She opened her studio and offered me the use of multiple pieces of art at scale. In the end, I sold the house and I believe the new buyers purchased uh I think three of the paintings. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

Okay, here's the question that makes everybody nervous. You've got company coming in from out of town. You have to take them to three meals. It can be breakfast, lunch, dinner, it can be bites and notches, it can be three breakfasts. What three restaurants are you going to?

SPEAKER_00 26:47

So, first and foremost, I would take anyone from out of town to Asina from the time they opened their doors and we arrived there with my son in a baby carrier where we stuck him under the table. Both of my children worked there as busboys. So they have been near and dear to our family, utterly generous with so many fundraising events. That would be certainly number one. I would take them to Oli's. Oh, yes, yes, because it's an institution and they have such a deep, rich history that deserves honoring and for a waffle that no one can rival. I would take them to Oli's. I think today I would take them to East Ocean for dim sum because I practice yoga above them so often that I smell their food. We've become really well acquainted with the wait staff as we sneak in before they try to close. I think that would be my my last one.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

Oh, websites, socials, way people can uh keep up.

SPEAKER_00 27:58

Instagram, Facebook, website, all of those, all of those places, all of those things. Sally at Sallyarhan.com, eastsidewest.com, Sallyarhan, Realtor on Instagram. I'm I'm in all those places.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

All right. Sally Hahn of Eastside West Realty and a few other places. Thank you so much for coming on the Alameda Connection. Fun having you.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

It has been my absolute pleasure. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

Take care. Thanks again to Realtor Sally Hahn for spending time with us this morning here on the Alameda Connection. To keep up with Sally and to keep up with what's going on in the Alameda real estate market, you can head to her website, SallyRHon.com. That's S-A-L-L-Y-R-H-A-N.com. While you're there, you can also sign up for her newsletter. You can also follow Sally on Instagram. That's at SallyRHon. Coming up next week on the Alameda Connection, my guest will be Dominic Damar, the CEO of Alameda's BEI construction. For 35 years, BEI has been at the forefront of some large-scale renewable energy projects: solar, battery energy storage. They also have an internship program, and they work with area high schools, providing hands-on experience for students in the construction trades. That's next Sunday on the Alameda Connection. Thanks to everyone who came out for Radio Day by the Bay at the California Historical Radio Society on Saturday the 18th. It was truly great to see everybody. Thanks as always to CHRS for providing the interview location for this week's conversation with Sally Hahn. And as we do every week, a big thank you to guitarist Bill Hart for providing our theme music. The song is Beachside Isle, and the album is Watch the Sky. I'm Scott Peeler. I'll catch you next Sunday morning, 8 a.m., the Alameda Connection, right here on KCSM HD2.