Steve Ploetz- Century 21 Award

Fantastic experience! I worked with Eli from Steve’s team he was patient & kind! He was professional, punctual and knowledgeable about the all the locations I was interested in purchasing. I found him to be an invaluable resource as my transaction wasn’t as smooth as I would have hoped it to be due to the sellers and their agent. Eli was there in every part of the transaction from beginning to end and made it as stress free as possible. I highly recommend working with Eli!

Steve was such a pleasure to work with as we searched for our home. He responds to phone calls, emails and texts immediately! He answered all of our questions and explained the home buying process in great detail.

Steve is genuinely one of the most professional, courteous real estate agents I have ever had the honor of dealing with. His attention to detail, his consideration and prompt communication with his clients is second to none. I highly recommend Steve Ploetz for anyones’ real estate needs.

I highly recommend Steve Ploetz to anyone who needs a Realtor! He recently sold our home for us… he was professional, thorough, and knowledgable. He sold our house in two days for more than our asking price. We chose him from the Unilocal reviews, we also interviewed 3 other realtors. We decided to put our trust in him based on his background, expertise and referrals. I always knew he was on our side, he listened and respected our requests and suggestions. Our buyers’ realtor was very slow to take care of business, Steve was diligent and kept frequent open communication with him to get the work done. Can’t recommend him enough! Love him!

Attentive, Polite, Assertive when it comes to getting down to business. Coming from an insurance agent, I am always impacted when an individual is able to turn something that you want, into something he wants. Steve didn’t want to sell us a house, he wanted to provide us with a forever home. Having 2 dogs, things weren’t the easiest, however, Steve took that as incentive to show his «Superman» ability to find the perfect, for the moment, home. I couldn’t imagine being happier with anyone else during the before, middle, and ending process of getting into our home. Cheers to you mate.

It has been an absolute pleasure to work with Steve on my first home purchase. I would highly recommend Steve’s services to anyone looking to buy or sell a home in or around the San Diego area. Steve knows the city very well and is diligent in his research so he is well-​informed about all the areas I was considering from North County down to Mission Hills.
What makes Steve unique is that he truly and deeply cares about his clients and takes the time to listen to their every need. He works diligently to ensure that his clients’ needs are not only met, but exceeded. Unlike other agents I encountered, Steve doesn’t just want to sell homes and pocket a commission. He really wants to place his clients in the perfect property and ensure that they will love it for years to come. Steve takes a special interest in your home search and becomes deeply involved and committed in the process. He will never rush you or pressure you into doing something you are uncomfortable with, and his patience is what helped me ultimately find my perfect home.
From day one I felt comfortable working with Steve. His honesty and integrity are great qualities to have in an agent that will be helping you make a decision of this magnitude. No matter how picky I was, Steve always looked out for my best interest and never steered me in the wrong direction just to make a sale. He always made me feel like I was a valuable client and I know he makes all his clients feel like they are his first priority.
It is with great confidence that I endorse Steve. The combination of his professionalism, dedication, and honesty make him one of the rare agents that have what it take to place their clients in their dream home. Give Steve a chance to help you find your next home. You will not be disappointed and you will find yourself recommending him to your friends and family and reaching out to him again in the future when you are looking for another home!
Thanks Steve for everything, you are truly a first class real estate agent and I will never work with anyone else!

I can describe Steve with one word «impressive». He sold our home in 5 days at above asking price! My husband and I briefly attempted to sell our home ourselves with little success. Steve convinced us to work with him and wait until we moved into our new home to sell the former one. Within a few days of moving out, Steve had our house staged and the home was transformed into a high end vacation retreat. More importantly, he sold our home for more than $ 100,000 over our highest offer! We are so happy that we worked with Steve.

I just purchased my second home using Steve as my realtor. He was patient, knowledgable, and prepared for every challenge that came our way. It was a competitive market and Steve really went the extra mile to get our offer in and negotiate the deal. Steve is a man of high character and a true professional. I highly recommend him!

My wife and I moved back down to the San Diego area due to the project I am working on. I meet with a few real estate agents before introducing my wife to Steve. Needless to say we made a great decision by picking Steve!!!
Steve is extremely knowledgeable of North County since he has lived there is entire life. He never was pushy and always gave us the right direction on selecting a home that fit our needs.
Where Steve really helped us was during the negotiations. We saved A LOT of money by him negotiating the terms of the home inspection and understanding the sellers agent.
We are extremely happy with everything Steve did for us!!! Steve will be the first person we contact ‘if’ we ever have to sell or purchase another home!!!

Steve is a ROCKSTAR!!! He came highly recommended by several of our friends and we were not disappointed. Steve’s experience and knowledge of the North County real estate market allowed him to quickly assess exactly what we were looking for in our search to downsize our home. That resulted in us finding a perfect match in a few short weeks! Steve worked diligently in our negotiations with the seller, making it a painless experience. Steve is a people person – such a pleasant, fun person to work with. It was a wonderful experience to work with someone who is not only an expert in his field but also loves what he does. Use Steve for your next home purchase or sell!

Steve is exceptional at his job. He was very patient with us as first time buyers and he truly ended up finding us the place we wanted with all of the amenities we were both looking for. The process of buying can be stressful in general but Steve was very good at listening to both of us and we are very happy with our new place! I would truly recommend him as he is very knowledgeable and experienced in the San Diego area!

Steve is an excellent agent. Would definitely recommend him to anyone in the market. It was a company relo prelim trip. Found him on Unilocal and on short notice he worked us into his schedule. We chose him and one other agent to interview. After phone conversation we chose Steve because he was definitely more focused on his clients than the other agent. He was quick to respond to our needs and very professional and knowledgeable. After finalizing our meeting we met and he took us to all listings we wanted to see in a small window of time. He was quick to understand exactly what we were really looking for and definitely delivered. One of the best agents we’ve worked with, and we’ve worked with quite a few!!! Thanks Steve!

What a long overdue review!!!
Let me start off by saying that the Steve-​Eli-​Cameraman (forgot his name-​sorry!) team is a well oiled machine! Steve is the face and the primary consultant in the home buying experience. Eli is the behind-​the-​desk, get all the paperwork done/​2^nd in command. And Cameraman is, well, cameraman — can’t have the team without him; and for us, he was the tipping point in making this whole team amazing. So why –1 star if they were amazing? I only give out a 5 star if the performance/​establishment was nothing but flawless on 2 or more accounts. With that being said, even though there were slight hiccups with our experience, I would recommend this team to any and everyone I know who’s looking for a home in this area. In fact, when I’m ready to sell this property I’ll be calling Steve!
A little bit of background. This is my first home buying experience. I wasn’t familiar with the North County area market/​area at all. My husband, at the time, was stationed in Texas. When we were looking for a house I lived about 90 minutes away.
Let’s start with the hiccups to get them out of the way. I initially contacted Steve to request his services in my home buying experience. After the initial phone call, Eli emailed me. I consider this a hiccup because no where in the conversation did Eli’s name come up. At the time, I did not know this was a 3 person team. It would have been more smooth and helpful to know from the start that this is a 3 person team who work together. Eli did explain that he often works with Steve and I didn’t have a problem with that– it just caught me off guard is all. Being that this was my first time buying a home and I didn’t know what to expect, having curve balls, however small, felt like a major change to me.
The second bump in the road came when Steve went M.I.A. on me. One day, all of our conversations were being held with Eli. Maybe under better circumstances this wouldn’t have been as big of a deal, but at the time we were down on our luck and almost ready to give up on buying a house because the «right» one just wouldn’t come along. Don’t get me wrong, Eli is a great guy, but I were under the impression that Steve was our Realtor and that the majority of our communications were going to be through him. Only after I had sent Steve an email stating my concerns did I find out he had left town for personal matters. I feel that Steve and Eli dropped the ball on this one. A lot of stress could have been avoided if only one of them would have informed us that Steve had to be out of town for a while. Did I feel about the email that I sent after finding out, yes, but I also felt as if my husband and I were being passed on to someone else. A simple explanation could have mitigated some tension. I’d like to reiterate that this was still just a minor hiccup. Both Steve and Eli apologized for their mistake. After Steve came back he gave us his full undivided attention — even went out to the property that we went into escrow with while he was gone so that he knew what we were getting in to.
Now for all the good! Steve is a wonderful Realtor; personable, gentle, funny, and very easy to talk to. Steve makes the house buying experience a pleasant and non-​stressful one. If you have any questions he is more than happy to answer as many as you can ask. The best part of Steve is that he truly wants to get you into a home you love; not a home you settle with — even if it means he looses his commission. For example, before Steve there was another Realtor I was working with but disconnected with. He showed my a property in Fallbrook that I fell in love with, but he wasn’t making any effort into obtaining for us. I explained the situation to Steve and Eli had drafted an offer up that evening. Steve explained to us that if this is the property we want, he’ll try and get it for us even if he can’t make the commission off of it. Why? Because he knows that if we ever need to sell or if one of our friends needs a Realtor, he’s confident that we’ll recommend him to them — and he’s 100% correct. Our dream property didn’t come to fruition, but this anecdote gives a great insight into what kind of person Steve is and what kind of business he does. It’s not about the money to him, it’s about finding you a home.
Videos are why Steve’s team is the best. Especially if you live far away, you’ll want this team. Why? Because they’ll go and video the properties you want ahead of time. This is how it works. They send you a list of properties, you pick ones you might be interested in, they video said properties, you watch/​share the videos that they upload onto DropBox for you, you pick the properties you want to see, then spend one day looking at properties of value.
Since I’m running out of space, I’ll finish it concisely. I’m a super picky person, but Steve came through and found me a home that I love. Steve’s been a Realtor since ’05, grew up in North County, went to UCSD, and really knows this area

If I could give Steve more stars I would. First off, I found Steve on Unilocal and decided to interview him after reading his reviews. I also interviewed two other agents and was very impressed by them. However, after meeting Steve I knew that he was our guy. My wife left the decision making up to me as she was at work the day I did the interviews, and I called her immediately after he left our house and told her that this guy left me with an awesome feeling.
He went above and beyond from the day I met him to the day we sold our house and the buyer signed the documents. He had our house professionally staged and it looked amazing. My wife even mentioned that she kinda didn’t want to sell the house after seeing how nice it looked once it had been staged. He had our carpets cleaned, the house cleaned, a professional photographer come in and take some really nice pictures, and even had a video tour made for our house. All of that was a part of his service, not extra.
We had an extremely difficult buyer and the buyer’s agent was no treat to deal with either, but Steve and one of his coworkers, Eli Engle, remained true professionals throughout the process and helped make things run as smoothly as possible. Our house was on the market for only 18 days and Steve was able to get us the exact price we wanted on the house. I am so glad that we went with Steve and I feel like I not only gained an agent I can trust, but I also gained a friend.

I worked with Steve and his team for several weeks. Short story is he is awesome. Longer story is that he and his team clearly know the San Diego area. They are responsive, will go to any effort to make you happy. I’ve worked with dozens of agents in my life and Steve is among the best! Ultimately we did not make the move but I would highly recommend Steve to anyone looking in the area.

We recently purchased a home in Oceanside through Eli Engle, one of the team members at Century 21 Award. We were extremely pleased with the way Eli took the time to really listen to us about what we were looking for – house, neighborhood, price– and put together a list of homes that met our needs. He was very knowledgeable about the area and was helpful in making decisions about pursuing certain areas vs other areas. We also really liked Eli’s approach: he was very helpful, friendly, informative and on-​the-​ball, but he also was not pushy AT ALL. That was a HUGE plus for my husband and me.
Once we finally found a property and entered escrow, Eli kept us up to date and checked in with us frequently to see if we had questions, etc. This was the third home purchase we have made and in the past, we have found that agents can be very helpful before the sales contract is accepted and then suddenly become awol once their commission is in the bag. I was impressed with Eli’s follow-​through with us. Even after we closed escrow he remained available for questions.
I would highly recommend Century 21 Award and would definitely use them in the future if the need ever arises.

I had my company relocate me from San diego to Raleigh recently, and I chose Steve to be my agent. We were extremely happy with his professional service and dedication to help us sell our house in Del Mar for top dollar! He worked with us on every detail of the sale process! Also, he paid for the professional stager, who was extremely good at what she does, as well as for a wonderful photographer. Once the house was staged and the pictures were on the website, I was amazed on how beautiful our house could look! I almost did not want to see it!
If you ever need a great agent, you should definitely consider calling Steve. I would use his services again if I had a chance, and would highly recommend him to everyone!

I’m currently in the process of working with Steve on the sale of my house in Oceanside. My review will be complete in a few weeks.

We’re so happy we worked with Steve on the purchase of our home! He’s an exceptional agent who made the home buying process very stress free for us. In less than six weeks from our first contact with him, we have successfully closed escrow and purchased our new home.
We were referred to Steve by both his excellent Unilocal reviews and Dave Pennington, our mortgage broker. Since this was our first time buying a home, we «interviewed» him in his office prior to making the commitment, and during our meeting, he pulled up over two dozen listings that would fit our criteria. The next step he took blew us away — he created videos of each of the potential properties so that we could get a feel for the property, before spending a day driving around looking at duds. This step saved us almost a whole day of property tours, as we were able to weed out almost half of the properties. We genuinely appreciate that time-​saving step, as busy people with full time jobs and nervous first-​time buyers.
He was very knowledgable about the area we were interested in and the listings available in our price range. On our «property tour day» we looked at about a dozen listings with him, and the entire time he was present and focused on OUR house hunt. He also had his assistant (Casey) meet us at another property we were interested in the following day when he was unavailable. That also made a great impression on us as Casey was just as knowledgeable and friendly as Steve — they make a great team! Both Steve and Casey were very responsive via text and email as we went through the agony of the decision making process, reviewing the pros and cons with us, and contacting listing agents regarding our questions.
When we decided on a property, Steve went to bat for us to make sure we paid a fair price for the property, was able to negotiate with the seller/​selling agent to ensure necessary repairs were funded/​addressed, and was in constant contact via phone, text and email to make sure that we understood the process and the necessary steps. He went above and beyond, meeting contractors for us, negotiating with a sometimes difficult seller, and ensuring we were «happy clients». I have no idea how much «behind the scenes» work he did, although I imagine it was a lot as there was never a hitch with the escrow company, funding the mortgage, getting the keys, and closing on time.
From his Unilocal reviews and all of the sales awards on his wall, you can tell that Steve is a busy man, and an excellent agent. Yet we never felt like we were anything less than his most important clients.
And on a personal note — Steve is warm and friendly, generous and outgoing — with a great sense of humor. Home buying can be an excruciating, time consuming process, but with Steve we felt like we were working with a friend who wanted to make great things happen for us, and he certainly did.

Steve is truly an awesome guy and exceptional at what he does.
We spent the better half of last Saturday with him. Looking at houses all day on one of your only days off is exhausting but having Steve show us around made us feel like we were hanging out with an old friend. We even got lunch after.
He is on top of it. He is 100% reliable, always available to take your calls and answer your questions. He won’t quit until he find the perfect place for you. He will even go and video any property so that you don’t have to waste your time going to look at something that you aren’t sure about. He works with your schedule and so accommodating.
I can’t say enough good things about him. My husband and I are working with Steve for our first condo purchase. It will be a relatively short term condo and we are already planning on using Steve for future purchases. I would recommend him to ANYONE.