Coastal Orange County
Clarity first. Strategy that sells.
When you understand your numbers, your timing and your options, you stop second-guessing.
Why this works
Marketing is the part many agents skip
Just listing a home puts it on the MLS and waits for someone else to bring a buyer. That is where most of the industry stops.
How buyers actually find you
Relevancy, recency, proximity
Three things decide whether marketing reaches the person who is actually ready to move. Every page on this site is built to hit all three at once, which is why there is a page for each neighborhood and each situation instead of one page trying to cover everything.
- Relevancy
- Written for one situation at a time. A first-time buyer and someone settling a parent's estate are not the same person and should not read the same page.
- Recency
- Kept current. Market conditions from eighteen months ago are not information, they are decoration.
- Proximity
- Specific to the street, not the county. Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, Irvine and the neighborhoods inside them.
Position. Impact. Conversion.
The E.P.I.C. framework
Four pillars on every home we take. Not a checklist of things agents are supposed to do, an argument for why your home ends up being the obvious choice on the market.
- Equity
- Presentation
- Impact
- Campaign
Equity
Not a CMA. Where you actually stand in the data market, the negotiation market, and the buyer's mind, so you are leading the market instead of reacting to it.
Presentation
Perception creates value, so we control the narrative. Photography, video and copy engineered before anything goes public, for a buyer deciding with their thumb.
Impact
We do not just market, we dominate. Targeted campaigns that put your home in front of thousands who were not searching yet, instead of hoping the MLS does the work.
Campaign
You do not list a home, you launch it. Pre-launch buzz, a timed calendar, and offer sequencing, because the first week is the week you never get back.
Buying instead?
The decision comes before the tour
Most agents start by showing you houses. I start by asking what you are trying to accomplish, because the buyers who regret a purchase almost never regret the house. They regret the timing, the terms, or a number nobody ran for them.
The objective
What you are trying to accomplish, before anyone opens a lockbox. More space, less maintenance, closer to family, out from under stairs. The house is the answer to that question, not the question.
The whole number
Not only the price. The rate you would be giving up, what happens to your property tax basis, the carrying cost, and what it takes to hold both ends if you buy before you sell.
What to buy and what to pay
Fewer homes and better ones, built on what you actually said, with a straight verdict on each one rather than enthusiasm about all of them.
Terms, risk and timing
Offer structure, contingencies, inspections and financing, arranged so the ending is boring. Price is part of a strategy. It is not the strategy.
The situation you are actually in
Different circumstances, different plans
The fundamentals do not change. The sequence, the timing and how much coordination it takes change completely. Start where you actually are.
01 / SELLING YOUR HOME
Price is part of a strategy
It is not the strategy.
02 / SELLING A HOME DURING DIVORCE
I am not there to take sides
I am there to protect the process.
03 / WHAT YOUR HOME IS WORTH
The number worth having comes after I see the house
You will get the automated estimate too.
04 / RELOCATING TO THE AREA
The goal is not to sell you on California
It is to help you make a decision you feel good about long term.
Knowledge does not create stress. Surprise does.
Where I work
Costa Mesa
Where you live in it changes how you experience it, and that is the part most people moving to Costa Mesa figure out too late.
Explore Costa Mesa →Newport Beach
Newport Beach is a place people plan vacations around. Living in it is a different thing.
Explore Newport Beach →Huntington Beach
An oil field, a swamp, and a set of encyclopedias. Huntington Beach was built on land nobody wanted.
Explore Huntington Beach →Irvine
Some people appreciate that level of planning and consistency. Others prefer the more mixed and organic character of a city like Costa Mesa.
Explore Irvine →Who I Am
I am Christine Donovan, broker-owner of Donovan Blatt Realty with a mortgage background, and a practicing California attorney. I am fourth generation in real estate. I was copying loan files at six and processing loans at eleven, I grew up in Newport Beach, and I have raised my family in Costa Mesa for thirty years.
I work across Orange County including Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach and Irvine.
Clarity first. Strategy that sells.
Talk about your move
Or call 714-319-9751. You can also read how I do it, step by step
Where I Work
Orange County, and four cities in particular. Each one is a different decision.
- Newport Beach is a place people plan vacations around. Living in it is a different thing.
- Costa Mesa: where you live in it changes how you experience it, and that is the part most people moving here figure out too late.
- Huntington Beach was built on land nobody wanted. An oil field, a swamp, and a set of encyclopedias.
- Irvine is one of the most master-planned cities in the country, and that single fact explains most of what people notice about it.
Costa Mesa is home. I have been here thirty years and raised my family here, after growing up in Newport Beach.
How I Market a Home
You do not list a house. You launch it.
Every listing I take runs on the same four-part framework, and each part answers a question a seller is actually asking.
- Equity. Your net, not the list price. It is the only one that describes your life after the sale.
- Presentation. What a buyer sees first, decided before anything goes public.
- Impact. Attention pointed at your home, instead of just a sign in the yard and a hope.
- Campaign. A launch with a plan for every click and every call, instead of posting it and waiting.
I built the framework. My team and I run it together, and you can meet them here.
What That Actually Produced
One listing campaign reached 93,105 people and was watched almost 72,000 times. That is the difference between a house being listed and a house being launched.
Dan sold in Costa Mesa:
They absolutely knocked it out of the park with their marketing, their open house. The right eyes saw our home, and it sold within less than three days. We had offers within twenty-four hours, multiple within forty-eight, and ended up selling for over asking.
Start Here
Selling, buying, or still deciding which comes first, it starts the same way. What are you trying to accomplish?
Call 714-319-9751, or use the contact form.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who decides what happens to a parent's house?
Legally that depends on the documents, and it is a question for the estate attorney rather than for me. What I see in practice is that there is rarely one clean answer. A trustee, a named executor, several siblings and whoever ended up holding the keys often all have a view, and they are usually dealing with belongings, deferred maintenance and each other at the same time. Once the authority is settled, the real estate part is mine: what the property is actually worth, what is worth doing to it and what is not, and running a sale everyone involved can see is being run fairly.
Do I need to fix up my house before I sell it?
Not always, and not everything. On the right home I handle the key inspections and the real repairs before it goes on the market, under a program called Certified Turn-Key Home. Think about a certified pre-owned car: the same car sells for more with the certification than without it, because the buyer trusts what they are getting. The part sellers underestimate is the negotiation. Because the true condition is already known, a buyer cannot come back later with their own report and invent repairs to chip away at your price. It is not the right move on every house. When it is, it means cleaner, stronger offers.
Does it help to have an agent who is also an attorney?
It helps, and it comes with a line I do not cross. I am a practicing California attorney, but when I am representing you in a sale or a purchase I am acting as your real estate broker and not as your attorney. Legal questions go to your attorney, tax questions to your CPA, and loan questions to your lender. What the background gives you is a reader. Contracts, disclosures and contingency dates are familiar territory, so I see where things can break before they do.
Thinking about a move?
Let's figure out your next step together. No pressure.