Testimonials

Mike Gaines is a star in the real estate business. He works tirelessly, including weekends and holidays to ensure your transaction is promptly handled.  There were many details that needed his expertise, and I truly feel that a less experienced agent would not have the depth of knowledge that Mike possesses.  His thorough attention to every detail resulted in a smooth property close.  Additionally,  Mike has an incredibly professional and impressive team! A real estate transaction can be challenging and difficult to navigate.  Hire Mike and you will have a Realtor for life.

I met Mike when he held an open house at my house. After years of going to open houses, I usually dodge around real estate agents. But Mike was different, and I'm so grateful that he took the time to invest in me and my family.

Mike knows Willow Glen real estate better than most -- he runs the local home tour, has the inside scoop on up-and-coming homes, on inventory and has a good gauge on what pricing should look like. 

Mike is invested in client relationships, their everyday lives and somehow stays positive during what is always a very stressful time of buying and selling houses. In working with Mike, I have only heard "Yes!" when asked if I can see a house for sale, or change dates or times. 

I recommend Mike as a terrific representative of Willow Glen, an agent with his ear to the ground, and all-around good guy to work with.

I actually found Mike right here on yelp searching for an experienced agent that knows Willow Glen very well. He sold our duplex for top dollar! He not only knows Willow Glen but the entire real estate market in the South Bay. Thanks, Mike, I appreciate the hard work...

Honest, hard working & gets the job done!  He sold our rental home in Willow Glen in short order.  His crew did the necessary painting & repairs, and Mike managed the entire process.  He took so much stress off of our shoulders and worked very hard for us.

After the sale of that property, he walked us through our very first 1031 rental property exchange process.  He was always on top of the dates and worked ridiculously hard to find us a property going as far as querying all existing multi-residential property owners in San Jose to drum up some opportunities.  One of those inquiries paid off, and we were able to buy a property that wasn't even listed with no competitive bidding situation right here in San Jose.  

Thank you, Mike, for helping us buy our very first home. I simply can't believe we did it and it was extremely painless! Mike kept us informed throughout the whole process, talked strategy with us, and best of all really knew the inventory. Due to his superior knowledge of Willow Glen and his understanding of exactly what we wanted, I am confident that we made the right choice, even though we only toured 4-5 properties. I would highly recommend Mike to anyone who wants to be guided through this process from start to finish.

After meeting with several real estate professionals, we ended up selecting Mike Gaines to sell our home. This turned out to be an excellent decision. He understood that we wanted to sell our house with a minimum of fuss, but we also wanted to get a fair price for it. Within three days of signing an agreement with him, we had an offer on our house for quite a bit more than we expected. We accepted the offer and Mike was with us every step of the way from inspections to the signing. He even offered help with getting rid of the furniture we weren't taking with us.

We had been anticipating spending a lot of time and money getting our house ready to show, and we happily jumped right over that part of the process and went straight to the sale. Mike's 'no drama' style was a great fit for our personalities.

Mike is extremely knowledgeable about the Willow Glen and surrounding real estate market, and we enjoyed discussing it with him. We also liked that he was very familiar with construction terminology and knew what was required for certain types of permits. We felt like he really understood our older home and how to get the best price for it. 

The only disappointment in the entire experience was that Mike is so good at what he does that we didn't get to work with him for very long, and we really did enjoy working with him. We recommend him without hesitation.

We first met Mike at an open house in January 2012.  Unbeknownst to him, we did not have an agent at the time and we were secretly assessing different agents as we went from open house to open house.  The two things that stood out with Mike were his friendly personality and his willingness to help without being pushy.  Mike offered to do a free, no-strings-attached, assessment of our current house, just so that we could be educated on what's going on in our area.  He finished the report, and we met two days later to go over it.  The report was easy to understand, and Mike was very helpful in assessing different options of what to do with the house, and what could be done to help increase the value.  Because of his professionalism and ability to make things easy to understand, we decided to go with Mike as our realtor (and glad we did!).

After giving Mike details of what we were looking for, he compiled a list of houses in Willow Glen for us to look at that weekend.  He had the six houses routed, and as we looked around, it was evident that he's been doing real estate for a while.  He was able to quickly point out things to consider (proper drainage routing, cut-through streets, school districts, just to name a few).  And he also knows Willow Glen and Campbell very well, since he grew up in the area.  After looking at about 18 houses with Mike, we came upon our dream house, a few blocks away from downtown Lincoln Ave.  Later that day, Mike helped us draw up an offer knowing that there were multiple bids on the home.  He was experienced enough to know what would be important to the seller and what are secondary items.  Over the next few days, Mike communicated with us regularly with updates, which helped ease our anxiety.  Fortunately the seller accepted our offer, and we were halfway there!  Mike very clearly explained the timeline to get to end of escrow, and he was very timely with when things had to get done.  It was a smooth transaction to close.

We highly recommend Mike because of his high energy, responsiveness, knowledge, and passion for finding the right house for his clients.  He has done well for us through the entire journey, and I'm sure he will do well for you.  Check him out!

My family has known Mike for years and he has helped my parents sell a place, helped my brother find his condo, and now helped me find my own condo. Although it took awhile for us to find the perfect place, Mike was awesome throughout the entire process. I trusted his advice, he was patient and took me to see as many places as it took to find the right one, and he gave me honest opinions. He was always available to answer my questions, get in touch with another agent, and talk me through the entire process. He understands the market and the business as a whole. I'm now in the perfect home thanks to Mike's hard work. 

I always suggest Mike to anyone who tells me they're looking for an agent. I can't say enough good things about him and I will definitely contact him in the future when I buy my next home.

After almost 20 years is it was time for me to sell my Willow Glen home. I could not have picked a better realtor for the task.  Mike is totally professional: takes notes, follows up, and knows what it takes to get the job done. Getting a home ready for sale is a big task and Mike knows how to get it done and who to hire to help out. My house needed painting and Mike hooked me up with Oscar who did an excellent job very quickly and at a very fair price.

There are many realtors who can guide you well through selling your home, but what makes Mike stand out is his knowledge of Willow Glen. This knowledge really helped me get the absolute best price for my home and while it was difficult to say goodbye to Willow Glen the extra money I got for my house (thanks to Mike) definitely softened the blow. 

Bottom line: If you are selling a home in Willow Glen, call Mike Gaines

We found Mike on Yelp and were impressed by his great reviews and that he runs the Realtor tours for Willow Glen. We wanted to focus on the Willow Glen area of San Jose (cute neighborhoods, good schools, fun downtown) but knew it would be tough to find something we could afford. We met with Mike, discussed all the details (budget, location, etc) and started to check out properties. Mike was very honest in his opinion of the houses we looked at. He knows every street in Willow Glen and can tell you which ones might have foundation issues due to location or which are used as cut-through streets by people trying to avoid downtown traffic. 

We started calling Mike "Mr. Willow Glen" because he seemed to know everyone and have the inside scoop on what houses were going to hit the market next. That's how we ended up closing our new house, and we couldn't be more thrilled with how things worked out. Thank you, Mike!

My parents were looking to list our rental house in San Jose and received a letter from Mike Gaines offering his services.  We signed the listing agreement on a Sunday afternoon, and we had a full price all cash offer on following Monday evening.  We could not believe the speed of it and were happy to accept the offer. However, Mike encouraged us to negotiate, and we ended up with the all cash offer that was above our asking price!! Furthermore, he suggested us to investigate "1031 exchange", which we were not familiar with and introduced us to an excellent broker.  We ended up with saving quite a bit of tax money as well through the exchange.   We could not have done the transactions without Mike's help, and we highly recommend him for any real estate transactions!

My husband and I had the pleasure of working with Mike Gaines for the sale of our home, as well as, the purchase of our new property in Willow Glen. We have used many real estate agents over the years, and by far our experience with Mike Gaines was the best. He definitely exceeded our expectations, and even sold our home in less than 24 hours! Mike was always there for us every step of the way. He went above and beyond to make sure that the sale of our home and purchase of our new property was seamless and stress-free.

A business partner and I were selling a new house in Willow Glen.  We interviewed several realtors and Mike stood out among all of them.  He presented us with a no-nonsense market analysis, gave us a critical review of the house, made recommendations for how to get the house in its best look to sell and generally impressed us with his knowledge of the market.  We had some sophisticated electronics built into the house such as security systems, whole-house sound, sprinklers, and even something that told us if sinks were overflowing.  Mike spent hours learning the system in order to demo it professionally for prospective clients.  Even though the house had been on the market for 30 days, he convinced us it was priced right and it would sell, which it did with a full cash offer after 40 days.  Mike was responsive, put together great marketing materials, and kept us abreast of all activity.  He also was extremely diligent about holding open houses.  We were 100% satisfied with Mike and will definitely use him for our next project!

I was looking for a home in Willow Glen (first time home buyer) and had no idea where to start...So, I turned to trusty Yelp to find a Realtor, which is where I found Mike.  I interviewed a few others from friends that had been recommended, but I felt like they did not have a good pulse on the Willow Glen area.  I met Mike, and I immediately knew he would be a great Realtor for the area.  Every time I met with Mike, we met in Willow Glen, which was great, because I love hanging out there (and now have a favorite Coffee Shop there).  

Because Mike is in charge of the broker tour each week in Willow Glen, he truly knows exactly what is on the market in Willow Glen and the 'buzz' around town. (PS he knows EVERYONE...) For the home I was interested in he spent a lot of time getting to know the agent and establishing a relationship, which made the process much easier and also made it possible for me to throw in a counter offer when someone came in above me.  Mike was very responsive via texts and emails and made sure I was very clear on the escrow process.  He accompanied me to many showings and was able to point out areas that could be problems in houses and things to look for.  Being the first time I have ever purchased a house, this was extremely important.  Also, being from Willow Glen, he has a strong knowledge of the foundations in Willow Glen... which can be an issue with all WG homes.  He knows the neighborhoods and their issues/benefits. I am a transplant to San Jose and have only lived here a few years, so I had no idea about the details of Willow Glen, which made Mike's advice crucial.

All in all, Mike was great to work with, great sense of humor, easy to communicate with and very accessible.