Our Initiatives

Our Company’s Initiatives

Real estate brokers are traditionally known for two things: big, flashy cars and burning through a forest’s worth of paper on any given day. In our quest to do things better, we’ve taken on some initiatives to reduce our carbon footprint and provide our clients with a responsible choice.

Environmental Responsibility

Many real estate agencies these days still adhere to the “old school” ways of conducting their transactions. Industrial sized printers printing out contracts for each and every iteration, and jumping in the car and running back and forth to clients to review changes or updates to a document. Years ago, Lifestyle Real Estate Services incorporated Dropbox into our administrative systems. Dropbox not only allows us to keep our own files safe and organized, but it also allows us to quickly and easily share larger files with our clients and vendors. This way, we can manage documents so that all of our team members have access to your transaction documents in, and out of, the office. If and when you have a question about a contract, a report, or a disclosure, our team will be ready and prepared to review vital information with you… and for smaller files, we’ve made sharing files even easier (but just as safe and secure) by utilizing our own servers and Droplr so that necessary images and documents are quickly and easily made accessible anywhere with an internet connection, for those times when a file is too large to send via email.

A few years back, we introduced another option that allows our clients to do a completely paperless transaction. Using the security features of DocuSign, you can review and “sign” your paperwork right on your screen, eliminating the need to print, sign, scan, and fax or email someone else to print, sign, scan and send back. We’ve also helped our clients stay in the loop with the most current status of their transaction by incorporating Basecamp project management software into our day-to-day operations. Basecamp allows us to “invite” our clients to a project so that they can view a calendar of their transaction’s events, tasks to be completed, and more. If either of these transaction options sound appealing to you, ask us for more information!

Of course, if you feel more comfortable, we can still do a paper transaction — feel free to ask. Just because we’re working hard to be innovative doesn’t mean our more “traditional” clients have to be nervous or uncomfortable. Progress only works if it’s a good fit for you. At the end of all of our transactions, we provide our clients with a CD containing the entire transaction’s file: contracts, disclosures, inspections, and any other important documents will be in one place that you can place in your files for safe-keeping and future reference.

We Burn Fewer Fossil Fuels

Real estate is a mobile business, and we spend a LOT of time on the road. We typically average about 25,000 miles per year, but in 2009 we logged over 48,000 miles — a record for one year! If we were a company driven by gas guzzlers, as many real estate brokerages are, we would have a massive carbon footprint. That’s not something to be proud of.

The vehicles we currently drive have been rated by the California Air Resources Board as Ultra-Low Emissions Vehicles. In short, this means our vehicles emit less emissions than 50% of the cars sold in the model year during which they were sold. This is a start, but we know we can do better. As our business grows, we are committed to acquiring vehicles that operate on alternative fuels and, eventually, are emissions-free.

Our business plan calls for the eventual acquisition of a property management vehicle, and our research has indicated that the best fit will be a BMW i3; it’s an electric vehicle that gets 81 miles per charge (or 150 miles with the range extender), which is perfect for managing properties around the East Bay Area. That’s progress we, and our clients, can feel good about.

You don’t have to spend much time on our blog or our Twitter feed to see that our President is a big fan of the Tesla Model S. The Model S is perfect for our business — it’s an all-electric, zero emissions vehicle with a 300 mile range. Even better, it was designed in California and is built right here in the East San Francisco Bay Area. A vehicle that grows our local economy with manufacturing jobs and drastically reduces our carbon footprint is exciting for us, and as our company grows we plan to acquire one.

Have a Question?

Want to know more about our initiatives? Have a question about how you or your company can become a little more environmentally friendly? Send us a message and we’ll do what we can to help you along!

Get in Touch

Back to Top