Buyer Representation · Maxwell Park, Oakland · Pending
5327 Brann Street Oakland, CA
The house other buyers scrolled past. My buyers read the reports instead, and are about to close on more house for the money than anything else in Maxwell Park.
Every neighborhood has one: the house that's been sitting a little too long while the shinier ones go pending next door. Most buyers assume something's wrong with it. Sometimes something is. That's exactly where the opportunity hides.
5327 Brann Street is a 1936 home in Maxwell Park with about 2,137 square feet on a 4,000 square foot lot. That's a lot of house for this neighborhood, where most of the 1920s and '30s cottages top out well under that. It hit the market in September and sat for more than a month while cleaner, smaller Maxwell Park homes got the attention.
Why It Sat
The disclosure package told the story. The inspector couldn't finish the crawlspace, there was old duct insulation that needed professional handling, and the City of Oakland's sewer lateral and sidewalk requirements were still open items. None of it is unusual for a house this age. All of it is the kind of thing that makes a buyer scroll right past a listing.
My buyers didn't scroll. We read every page, got our own inspectors in, and turned a list of scary-sounding items into a list of priced, solvable ones.
The Negotiation, Round One: Price
It was listed at $899,000. At the 2022 peak, comparable Maxwell Park homes had traded above $1.1 million, and that's a hard memory for any seller to let go of. But buyers pay for today's market, not yesterday's. After 38 days on market, the list price wasn't the real question. The real question was what the house was worth with its open items priced in. We built that number from the comps and the reports, and negotiated from it rather than from the sticker. A buyer who can show their math is much harder to say no to than one who just says "lower."
Round Two: The Fix List
Winning the contract was the first half. Then our own inspections came in, and we went back to the table. We tied the repair request, the contingency removal, and a short extension into one package: you don't get one without the other two. That gave the seller a clear path to closing and gave my buyers what they needed. The duct work is being handled by a licensed abatement contractor at the seller's expense, the sidewalk certificate came through, and the sewer lateral got the time it needed to be done to the city's standard rather than rushed.
The result: my buyers are buying a bigger-than-average Maxwell Park home at a price that reflects its real condition, with the hard parts handled before the keys change hands. That's not luck. That's homework, plus a negotiator who doesn't blink.
Maxwell Park
Maxwell Park is one of East Oakland's quiet success stories: tree-lined blocks of 1920s and '30s homes, a strong neighborhood association, and quick access to I-580 and the Mills College at Northeastern campus. Homes here trade well below what similar square footage costs just up the hill: as of late October 2026, homes of about the same size in Glenview and the Oak Crest area were going pending with list prices above $1.1 million. That gap is why buyers who are willing to look past the first page of the disclosures keep finding value here.
Looking for Value in Oakland?
The best deals rarely look like deals on Zillow. They look like the house with the long disclosure package and the stale days-on-market count. If you want someone who'll read every page, price every problem, and negotiate it into your favor, let's talk. I like the ones with homework.
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Neighborhoods I Serve
- Crocker Highlands
- Piedmont
- Rockridge
- Claremont
- Berkeley Hills
- Kensington
- Sequoyah
- Chabot Park
- Skyline Estates
- Oakland Hills
- All neighborhoods
| Address | 5327 Brann Street, Oakland, CA 94619 |
|---|---|
| List Price | $899,000 |
| Status | Pending |
| Bed / Bath | 3 Bed · 2 Bath |
| Living Area | ±2,137 sq ft |
| Lot | ±4,000 sq ft |
| Year Built | 1936 |
| Neighborhood | Maxwell Park, Oakland |
| Representation | Buyer's Agent |
| Agent | Patrick MacCartee, The Grubb Company |