ALCOVE Collective — Local services in Laguna Beach

I never felt compelled to write a review for anyone unless they are exceptionally good, and Sylvia Ames is THAT good. We first met her during an open house while we just began searching for a weekend vacation home in Laguna Beach. We put an offer in for that house but ended up being outbid. Sylvia has been very attentive and patient in learning the specifics of what we were looking for and a week later informed us of another house that just fell out of escrow due to the buyer being unable to secure a loan. She scheduled us a last minute private tour since we were driving in from really far and we submitted an offer right away! The house is EVERYTHING we were looking for and is much better than the first one we bid on. Sylvia is very experienced and well connected with the local agents to guide us in the right direction that eventually helped us get the house among several other offers. She is extremely professional and reliable, and went above and beyond every step of the way during escrow to ensure a smooth closing. She also personally assisted in contacting the local vendors for refinishing our floors, helping us bringing packages inside the house while we couldn’t make it for the delivery, and had her husband help us installing and programming our garage door keypad. She is super responsive anytime we have any questions and is always there to help in the best way she can.

I can go on and on as there is endless nice things I want to say about her. You can trust you are in very good hands with Sylvia. I won’t want to look for another agent for any future buying or selling in Orange County when you have someone this good....

We needed someone to represent us who is extremely knowledgeable concerning Laguna Beach Real Estate as well as undeveloped land and what it takes to achieve City approval.

Mike Johnson and his group were the team we sought. Selling an undeveloped lot requires a lot of expertise. You need to know how much it costs to build a custom home and contrast that against existing properties. Laguna Beach Design Review can be extremely challenging, making the building of a custom home almost impossible. Mike understood what it would take to successfully package our property.

We purchased just prior to the Great Recession and therefore were at the high end of the market. Mike was able differentiate our property from other lots helping us to successfully sell at a reasonable price. We are grateful to his support and consultation during this period of time. Having moved out of the area required that he represent us in every way necessary to produce a great outcome. Thank you Mike Johnson and the members of your team. We are...

We closed escrow our family home of more than 20 years l. after several days of negotiations with multiple offers, on the exact day the “shelter in place” (from the Coronavirus pandemic) was publicly announced. The day after the announcement, in unchartered territory, we moved all of our furniture with a moving company, to a remote storage location (to be handled at a later date). We proceeded to tent our house for termites (as per the inspection report requirements), and three days later, with masks and gloves, my husband and I cleaned our house from top to bottom by ourselves. We even rented a carpet cleaner from a local hardware store, because there were no businesses open for hire at the time to do the job. Looking back, everything seems very surreal — but we got through it with the help of Mike Johnson, Sylvia Ames, and the entire team at Mike Johnson COMPASS Group in Laguna Beach. Thank you for making a VERY difficult circumstance so easy and seamless! Hard to believe now but every moment...