Several months ago, I decided to sell my Honolulu property. I had inherited this investment property from my mother when she passed away in 2004. I soon discovered I had inherited one of the most stressful experiences of my life.

Eventually, I contacted an attorney who dealt with Partition sales and he advised me to find a realtor willing to take on a challenging transaction. Yvonne Ahearn was that unique individual! She truly looked at the listing holistically. She understood the complexities of selling a rundown property, as well as the emotionally draining personal dramas that accompanied it. Yvonne quickly found out that her training as an agent would require skills including an understanding of geriatric behavior, psychology, social work and in short, enviable interpersonal skills that went way beyond selling property.

All this was exasperated by a pandemic landscape that mandated social distancing, sophisticated technological expertise & defining a series of safety measures that were unheard of prior to COVID-19. Creatively rethinking her strategy for selling my property was a seamless endeavor & even more impressive, Yvonne was able to maintain relationships with both my difficult partner and the buyers, who could have easily walked away for many reasons, under extraordinary circumstances.

The most challenging part of selling our property was not the adversity of practicing real estate during a pandemic, but rather the endless hours Yvonne was trying to navigate my business partner’s mental, physical, and emotional issues that were far beyond simply finding a willing buyer. […]

I could spend pages describing the depth of Yvonne’s work ethic, her clarity of vision in terms of real estate transactions, the skilled marketing of our property, her help dealing with a management company that was incompetent in dealing with our property (including no payments for GET in months), but it is really the human dimensions of who she is that I want to bring to the forefront here. I seldom have seen anyone bring such kindness into someone’s life who clearly had little hope for the future. Yes, there are many professional attributes that are compelling and important in real estate. However, Yvonne’s personal interactions with her clients have really illuminated the importance of life skills, and the ability to see the best in people.