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Shawn Dunning is a candidate for mayor in the City of Richmond, CA. Shawn is the former chief operations officer of organizational development company Adventure Associates, Inc. During his tenure there, Shawn developed and facilitated leadership, team development, and conflict resolution programs for corporate, government, and nonprofit groups throughout the United States. Earlier in his career, he directed the Leadership Wisdom Initiative and also founded the Leadership & Training division for the international conflict transformation organization Search for Common Ground. Working from Washington D.C. and Jerusalem, Shawn led projects in the United States, the Middle East, the Balkans, Africa, and Southeast Asia that developed the capacity of emerging and elite political and civil society leaders to lead from a basis of common ground principles.

Shawn is also an avid community organizer and volunteer, having served on nonprofit boards. He studied speech communication and psychology as an undergraduate at Cal Poly and holds a master's degree in conflict analysis and resolution from George Mason University, where he developed foundational theory and practice for Adventure-Based Conflict Resolution.

Learn more about Shawn's professional experience at shawnmdunning.com and on his LinkedIn profile.

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Aman Daro has become a regular on the podcast, and with good reason. If you've ever received statistical charts from me or any Red Oak Realty agent showing aspects of the real estate market in the East Bay most likely they were conceived of and compiled by Aman Daro.  Aman Daro is COO at Red Oak Realty but is more fondly thought of as "the data guy".  

In this conversation with Aman we compare and contrast this years market to the market in 2021. We talk about the story of this years market and Aman identifies for us exactly when the market shifted in favor of buyers. We speculate as to why the market has shifted so dramatically. Aman walks us through some of the key data points for the year so far, the highs and lows,  and offers possible scenarios for what we can expect between now and years end.

I encourage you to listen to episode #5 of the podcast, my first conversation with Aman, to better understand his mission at Red Oak Realty and his approach to tracking data and uncovering market trends.

Aman Daro is CA licensed real estate agent DRE##1350412

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Andrew Butt is a candidate for City Council for District 2 in Richmond, California. He’s managing principal at Interactive Resources, his family’s architecture firm in Pt. Richmond.   Andrew lives with his family in Point Richmond and has served as planning commissioner for the cities of El Cerrito and Richmond, and chaired the Richmond Design Review Board and El Cerrito Planning Commission. Andrew is also very involved in the local community through his volunteer work as board president of Point Richmond Music, which he co-founded, and serves on boards of several local non-profits, including the Early Childhood Mental Health Program, and the Mt. Diablo Silverado Council of the Boy Scouts of America.

Andrew is an old friend of mine so I thought this was a good opportunity to chat with someone I know and trust about local politics in the city I choose to call home. We talk about how Andrew and I met; his father, Mayor of Richmond, Tom Butt, in whose footsteps Andrew is clearly following in many ways; we talk about growing up in Richmond; City of Richmond history from about the second world war to the present and Andrew’s recollection of racial tension as he was growing up; the collapse of industry in the middle of the last century and its impact on the population; we touch on redlining; we talk about Andrew’s family’s history of public service; his studying for architecture in Arkansas and eventual return home to work at his family’s architecture firm in Pt. Richmond; we talk about Andrew’s start in community service in Richmond, the Point Richmond Music Summer Concert Series, his work as an appointee to the Planning Commission, and participation with the Design Review Board; we talk about NIMBYism and its contribution to the housing shortage; we talk about Andrew’s reasons for getting into local politics; we talk a good deal about the Point Molate and opposition to Andrew’s preferred vision for Point Molate from the Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA, the political group currently holding power at City Council level; we talk about the Rosie The Riveter National Historic Park and other preservation efforts; the challenges of getting good information and unbiased reporting; we talk about Andrew’s influences (there's some mention of former Mayor of Richmond, David Pierce) and his vision for the City of Richmond and how it might look if there were a revitalization of Richmond’s downtown main streets; we go on in rapid fashion to talk about many aspects of City leadership that concern Andrew and are the reasons he has created a 10 point plan and sees now as being an important time for him to run for office; we talked about the challenges of social media and the false narratives prevalent in social media that Andrew feels he needs to address.

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Brian Cogley is an American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI) Certified Inspector and a California Licensed General Contractor (#954299).

Brian has been inspecting residential and commercial buildings in the Bay Area since 2004. He has performed Condo-Conversion Inspections, Reserve Studies, BOMA Measurement Calculations, ADA Inspections, Cost Estimates, and consulted on new construction defects for litigation purposes. Additionally, he is featured on the cover and in the introduction of the popular book, The Complete Guide to Home Inspection.

In this conversation Brian and I talk about the benefit of a Home Inspection; the criteria for becoming a Home Inspector; the types of housing stock most commonly found in the east bay and the common vulnerabilities in construction methods through the decades; foundations; seismic retrofit; building codes; questions of code compliance and so much more. Click here to download a sample Cogley Inspections complete home inspection report.

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It's been 2 years since the real estate market roared back to life after the initial COVID lockdown in March 2020. Interest rates dropped in 2020, and as people took the time (and had the time) to reevaluate their lives and what, where, and how they wanted to feel about life, the real estate industry was about as hot as it could get. But is the wind starting to blow from another direction as we head into the summer of 2022? It's hard to say definitively that the market has or is shifting but it sure feels like it... I thought I would take my concerns about a changing market to my colleagues as I sat today at an open house. My gratitude to Anissa Burnley at Compass and Tim Kerns at Red Oak for sharing their insights. Gratitude to Aman Daro too for his always remarkably detailed and useful data.

 Also mentioned in the podcast is this "The Daily" podcast.

Anissa Burnley is with Compass and is a licensed CA real estate agent, DRE#01471819
Tim Kerns is with Red Oak Realty and is a licensed CA real estate agent, DRE#02126975

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Aman Daro has become a regular on the podcast, and with good reason. If you've ever received statistical charts from me or any Red Oak Realty agent showing aspects of the real estate market in the East Bay most likely they were conceived of and compiled by Aman Daro.  Aman Daro is COO at Red Oak Realty but is more fondly thought of as "the data guy".  

I encourage you to listen to episode #5 of the podcast, my first conversation with Aman, to better understand his mission at Red Oak Realty and his approach to tracking data and uncovering market trends.

In this conversation with Aman we talk about the record number of transactions in the East Bay in 2021; the possibility of a cooling market in 2022; the increasing number of licensed real estate agents; the increasing value of East Bay real estate; increasing mortgage rates and inflation, and the potential impact on the real estate market; how Aman tracks property value - his unique and innovative approach; the average number of offers on East Bay listings; where are people moving to and from; an overview of the market in the greater Bay Area.

Aman Daro is CA licensed real estate agent DRE##1350412

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Katie Lance is the CEO and Co-Founder of Katie Lance Consulting. For the past 10 years Katie has been working with agents and brokers to help them get smarter about how to use social media to grow their business. Her specialty is in helping real estate agents and brokers achieve big results using social media WITHOUT spending a ton of time! She is also the author of the best-selling book, #GetSocialSmart and the founder of the #GetSocialSmart Academy. Katie is a nationally known keynote speaker at conferences and events and has been named one of the most 100 influential people in real estate by Inman News and is a frequent contributor to The Huffington Post. 

Whether you have a social media plan for 2022, haven't yet gotten serious about social, or if you're somewhere in between, there are plenty of great ideas to catch in this podcast. 

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Liam O’Donoghue is the host and producer of the East Bay Yesterday podcast and co-creator of the Long Lost Oakland map. His journalism has appeared in outlets such as KQED Arts, Berkeleyside, Open Space, KALW-FM, Mother Jones, Salon, East Bay Express, and the syndicated NPR program Snap Judgement. In 2018, he was honored by the East Bay Express as “the best journalist-turned-historian” and presented with a “Partners in Preservation Award” from Oakland Heritage Alliance. O’Donoghue has given many presentations on local history at libraries, schools and bookstores and throughout the Bay Area, as well as at institutions such as The California Historical Society, The Hearst Museum, Oakland Rotary Club, and Nerd Nite East Bay. O’Donoghue’s quotes on Oakland-related issues have appeared in media outlets including New York Times and Washington Post.

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Ben Stewart has 18 years experience as a financial advisor and portfolio manager. He founded Stewart Wealth Management in 2007, after spending seven successful years as a Vice President at Wachovia Securities. 

I greatly enjoyed chatting with Ben! He has a very matter-of-fact approach to investing and is so incredibly down to earth and comfortable with sharing his vast insight. He never over complicates the conversation with opaque lingo or flashy "solutions".

Ben serves his clients with high energy, a pro-active work ethic, and a creative investment approach to build wealth. He strives to take the mystery out of the complex world of investments with simplified communication and effective stratgeies . Ben has specialized knowledge in not only stock and bond markets, but also real estate investments. 
 
Ben grew up in Novato, California and graduated from California State University of Sacramento in 1996. 

Ideas for the show or to want just to support us? Send us a text!

Aman Daro is becoming a regular on the podcast, and with good reason. If you've ever received statistical charts from me or any Red Oak Realty agent showing aspects of the real estate market in the East Bay most likely they were conceived of and compiled by Aman Daro.  Aman Daro is COO at Red Oak Realty but is more fondly thought of as "the data guy".  

I encourage you to listen to episode #5 of the podcast, my first conversation with Aman, to better understand his mission at Red Oak Realty and his approach to tracking data and uncovering market trends.

In this conversation with Aman we talk about “the pandemic market”, roughly described as the period from mid-March 2020 to July 4th, 2021; the return of seasonality since July 2021 and into the Fall market; how to set seller expectations for the Fall market; efforts to gauge buyer demand in the Fall market. We also speculate cautiously about what buyer demand will look like through the end of the year; the record number of home sales in the inner East Bay in 2021; a likely decrease in the number of units sold in 2022 and why it’s important to prepare for media spin and understand the context for a decrease in total units sold; algorithm predictions & pitfalls; iBuyers & the East Bay, and more.

Aman Daro is CA licensed real estate agent DRE##1350412