Who Should I Hire to Sell a Probate Property in San Francisco?

Tim Curran has been licensed in San Francisco since 1987 and has assisted more than 610 estates, which makes his the longest probate track record on this list. He describes himself as possibly the most referred Realtor by estate attorneys for probate and trust sales in the city, and he mentors other agents on handling court-supervised transactions.

He started at Sapunar Realty, stayed through its acquisition by Coldwell Banker, managed the Lakeside office in 2007 and 2008, and is now at Compass. Executors who want an agent who has seen every variation of a confirmation hearing will find that here; the trade-off is that his practice is residential rather than multi-unit focused.

• Served on the San Francisco Association of Realtors board of directors from 1995 to 1997 and 2000 to 2004, and as a California Association of Realtors regional director.

Andrew De Vries founded Probate Agent Real Estate Services and holds a California Professional Fiduciary License on top of his broker's license, which means he has sat on the fiduciary's side of the table as well as the agent's. His practice is limited to probate, estate, trust and conservatorship sales, with and without court confirmation, and by his own count he has closed more than 700 of them across the major Bay Area counties.

He runs local phone lines for six Bay Area regions, offers turn-key property preparation for heirs who live elsewhere, and is a regular speaker to professional fiduciaries. That reach makes him the strongest choice here for an estate with property in more than one county.

• Frequent speaker on real estate for fiduciaries, including the Special Needs Trust Symposium.

“Andrew assisted me in the sale of a home in San Francisco and I currently reside in Georgia.”Ida Sadler, out-of-state heir

Karen McCarthy's practice is built entirely around probate, trust, inherited-property and senior-transition sales, not as a sideline. She holds the Certified Probate Real Estate Specialist, Certified Trust and Probate Specialist and Seniors Real Estate Specialist designations and says she attends every appraisal, inspection and court confirmation hearing herself, managing the overbid process when one is required.

Her value to out-of-area heirs is logistics: she lines up senior move managers, estate-sale companies, donation pickups and document shredding so no one has to fly in, and she offers repairs, updates and staging with no upfront cost for qualified estates, paid from escrow at closing.

• Works alongside probate attorneys, estate accountants and 1031 exchange specialists as part of the sale plan.
• 5.0 rating across 12 Zillow reviews.

Aimee Arost is a Certified Probate Real Estate Specialist who practiced law before moving into real estate, and her California Bar license is still active. That background shows in how her SFBLOCKS team handles formal probate, Independent Administration of Estates Act sales, trust sales and conservatorships: the paperwork and the notice periods get the attention a court expects.

Before leading her own team she spent more than 15 years as a sales manager at San Francisco's largest independent brokerage and then at Compass, overseeing more than $7.5 billion in sales. RealTrends lists her team at $104 million in volume across 64 transactions.

• Compass lists probates and trusts, divorce and risk management among her specialties.

Jessie Lee is a Certified Probate and Trust Advisor whose team closes 50 to 70 transactions a year across single-family homes, multi-unit buildings, condos and lofts, with more than 300 career sales. Her probate guide walks personal representatives through the difference between full and limited authority, including the court confirmation and the 90-percent-of-appraisal rule that applies to limited-authority sales.

Named to America's Top 100 Real Estate Agents every year from 2020 through 2025 and to the RealTrends America's Best list, she is a fit for executors who want a large, systematized team behind a probate listing.

Pat Rock has focused on probate, trust and conservatorship sales in San Francisco since 1989, and his practice leans into the practical side of an estate: coordinating vendors and repairs, running estate sales and tenant move-outs, sending weekly progress reports, and mediating when family members see things differently.

For an executor who lives out of the area or is facing a house full of belongings, that project-management role can save weeks. His marketing is built around the overbid at the confirmation hearing, which is where limited-authority sales are won or lost.

“Pat took on a challenging project in our case and handled it diplomatically and positively, resulting in a quick sale in a changing market.”Dean C., estate client

Ed Leavitt has specialized for more than 35 years in probate, trust, conservatorship and dissolution sales, residential and commercial, and he handles both court-confirmation sales and sales under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. The San Francisco Superior Court has appointed him to sell property in dissolutions of marriage and partition actions, and he has presented at the California Probate Referee convention.

Several probate attorneys and private fiduciaries use him regularly, which puts him in the same small circle as the agents at the top of this list. He works from Compass and has no public review profile, so ask for attorney references.

Todd Wiley holds the Certified Probate Real Estate Specialist designation and leads a Compass team with Kim Wiley that maintains a dedicated trust and probate practice. The team attends court hearings with the personal representative, handles single-family homes and multi-unit buildings, and has one of the strongest review records on this list at 5.0 across 77 Zillow reviews.

• His trust and probate guide lays out the court-confirmed sale in detail: offers of at least 90 percent of the referee's appraisal, hearings set 20 to 40 days after the petition, and overbids opening at the accepted price plus 5 percent plus $500 with a 10 percent deposit due at the hearing.

Karen Mai pairs a Certified Probate and Trust Specialist designation with a practice aimed at heirs who are not in San Francisco. Her probate page covers clean-outs, repairs, local paperwork and home preparation handled remotely, an as-is purchase option when the estate would rather not repair, and referrals to probate and eviction attorneys when an occupant will not leave.

She reviews every contract personally and works alongside the estate's attorney. Her public reviews are strong on both platforms: 5.0 across 24 Zillow reviews and 5.0 across 89 Google reviews, with 22 closed sales in the past two years.

Michael Freethy is a fourth-generation San Franciscan licensed since 1990 whose practice covers probate, trust and conservatorship sales along with tenant-occupied property, a combination that comes up constantly in older San Francisco estates. Thirty-six years in one market means he has priced through several cycles and knows which buyers show up for a court-confirmed sale.

Nick Johnson, a native San Franciscan with 21 years at Coldwell Banker Realty, lists trust, probate, 1031 exchange and bankruptcy sales as specialties and holds the CCIM commercial designation, so he can handle an estate that includes a storefront or small commercial building as well as a home. His 5.0 rating across 56 Zillow reviews, on 215 recorded sales, is among the most consistent in this group.

Trust Properties USA is a brokerage built specifically for executors, trustees, CPAs and professional fiduciaries, and Tom Pantazis is its Bay Area probate and trust associate at the San Francisco office on Pacific Avenue as well as its territory leader for the Peninsula and Silicon Valley. The firm advances the cost of repairs, renovations and clean-outs, including hoarder clean-outs and hazardous-material disposal, at no upfront cost, with repayment deferred until the property sells.

It also handles tenant and squatter removal with legal-notice preparation and cash-for-keys agreements, which makes it a practical option when an estate has little cash, significant deferred maintenance and an occupant who needs to leave.

Lorraine Meier describes herself as an expert in probate, estate, trust and conservatorship sales across San Francisco and five neighboring counties, and her Yelp reviews back it up: one estate client going through probate on a grandfather's house says her team cleared the contents, handled painting, repairs and landscaping, listed within a month and sold two weeks later. A TIC and condo specialist with a 100 percent seller-side practice and a 5.0 rating across 16 Yelp reviews.

Jennifer Burden and Carren Shagley run Legacy Real Estate, a mother-and-daughter San Francisco brokerage with more than 680 properties sold and 64 years of combined experience. They do not advertise a probate specialty, but a client account on their site describes the team selling an inherited duplex, and their 5.0 rating across 67 Zillow reviews reflects a hands-on, two-principal model. A fit for heirs who want a boutique team for a straightforward inherited home or small building.

Janice Lee does not market a dedicated probate practice, but she is on this list for a specific reason: inherited two- to four-unit buildings. The top agent at Coldwell Banker's Sunset office, with more than 660 sales, she has handled the sale of an inherited rental duplex from clean-up and renovation through five all-cash offers in ten days, and her 5.0 rating across 107 Yelp reviews is the largest review base here. Heirs with a tenant-occupied building in the Sunset or Richmond should include her in their interviews.

Joshua Vigo built Josh V Realty as a probate-focused brokerage in Southern California, closing 24 probate sales in 2021 and helping more than 127 families in five years, many of them out-of-state heirs, before expanding to the Bay Area in 2025. His San Francisco probate page offers a free resource guide and attorney introductions, and reviewers describe him arranging clean-outs, contractor bids and security monitoring on attorney-referred listings. He is newer to the city than the agents above, so ask for recent local closings.

Steve Pierce has been a California attorney since 1982 and a licensed broker since 1989, and his Bay Area Estate Solutions team in Fremont offers turn-key handling of probate and trust estates: property care and upgrades, coordination of personal belongings, sale planning and the trust and probate preparation that goes with it.

He serves San Francisco from the East Bay rather than from a city office, so he suits executors with property on both sides of the Bay or estates where a lawyer's read of the file matters as much as the listing.

• Also the broker and operating principal of KW Commercial East Bay, with a J.D. from McGeorge School of Law.

Anda Margine is the Realtor and C.A.R. Certified Probate and Trust Specialist on Steve Pierce's Bay Area Estate Solutions team. The team's model covers the three stages of an estate, opening the case, administering it and closing it, with repairs, market readiness and the sorting of personal belongings handled in between.

She is the right contact for families who want one team to manage the property from the date of death through closing, with legal questions routed to the broker-attorney down the hall.

Adam Hamalian co-founded Blue Gable Real Estate and holds the Seniors Real Estate Specialist designation alongside trust and probate sales, property management and broker price opinion credentials. He has managed a family rental portfolio since 2001, which helps when an inherited property comes with tenants and deferred maintenance.

Blue Gable lists a San Francisco office on 4th Street, though most of his sales are in Contra Costa and Alameda counties; consider him for estates with East Bay property as well as a city home.

• 5.0 rating across 53 RateMyAgent reviews, with about 20 sales in the trailing 12 months.

Myron Potter is a Certified Trust and Probate Specialist at Compass whose practice centers on inherited property for trustees, attorneys and families in the East Bay, with more than 100 transactions and $100 million in sales since 2017. His site maintains dedicated trust and probate guides and an FAQ for first-time trustees.

He is listed here for executors whose San Francisco estate also includes Contra Costa or Alameda County property; for a city-only estate, the agents above are closer to the courthouse.