ABOUT
We help families find the right East County home.
Real estate, lending, and lifestyle guidance — built around the way East County actually works.
OUR STORY
Built for East County families.
The Best of East County Living was created by E3 Realty & Home Loans — a Brentwood-based brokerage operating across East and Central Contra Costa County since the mid-2010s. After years of helping families navigate the region's neighborhoods, schools, and markets, we noticed something: most online resources for East County buyers and sellers were either generic listing portals or marketing sites pretending to be guides. None of them captured what makes living here actually different — the Brentwood farms, the Discovery Bay marinas, the school district nuances, the commute realities, the value tradeoffs.
So we built this. The Best of East County Living is a brokerage-backed resource for buyers, sellers, and anyone curious about what life in our communities is really like. Every guide is written by someone who lives or works in the markets we cover. Every market report uses real data. Every recommendation is one we'd give a family member.
The site is run by the same team that runs E3 Realty. When you reach out — whether for a free home valuation, a neighborhood consultation, or just a market question — you're talking to local specialists, not a national lead-gen pipeline.
We're not the biggest brokerage in Contra Costa County. We're not trying to be. What we are is a focused, hands-on team that knows East County deeply and treats every client relationship as a long-term one. That's the bet behind everything you see on this site.
WHAT WE STAND FOR
Excellence. Energy. Execution.
The three principles E3 was built on. They're not marketing slogans — they're how we evaluate every decision we make on behalf of our clients.
01
Excellence
Real estate is the largest financial decision most families make. The level of expertise, preparation, and care we bring to that decision should match the stakes. Excellence means doing the homework no one else does — comping the right way, anticipating the questions, knowing the buyer pool, treating every detail as worth getting right.
02
Energy
East County moves at its own pace, but the right opportunities don't wait. Energy means being responsive when our clients need us — answering the late-night question, jumping on the new listing, walking the property the same week, never being the bottleneck in our clients' decisions.
03
Execution
Strategy is cheap. Execution is what separates closing the deal from losing it. Execution means handling every step with discipline — pricing strategy through marketing through negotiation through closing — so our clients don't have to manage their own transaction. We do the work.
WHAT WE DO
Real estate, with the lending and lifestyle handled too.
Buyer Representation
Comprehensive buyer-side service across East and Central Contra Costa County. Neighborhood guidance, listing curation, offer strategy, negotiation, inspection coordination, and through-closing project management. Free for buyers; commission paid by the seller in nearly all cases.
Seller Representation
Strategic listing services designed to maximize sale price: pricing strategy, pre-listing preparation, professional marketing, targeted buyer outreach, offer evaluation, and closing coordination. We take fewer listings than volume brokerages so we can give every seller the attention their largest asset deserves.
Mortgage & Lending
Through E3 Home Loans, we offer in-house mortgage origination — meaning your purchase agent and your loan officer are on the same team. Faster underwriting, fewer handoffs, and a single point of contact for both sides of the transaction.
WHERE WE WORK
14 communities across East and Central Contra Costa.
We specialize in East County and work regularly across Central Contra Costa. Each community has its own dynamic, and we know them in the kind of detail that only comes from regular hands-on work in each market.
BY THE NUMBERS
What it adds up to.
$350M
Closed Volume, 2025
1000+
Families Helped
14
Communities Covered
10+
Years Specializing East County
Numbers are nice, but what we care about is the relationships behind them. The vast majority of our business comes from past clients and their referrals — that's the metric that actually matters to us.
HOW WE WORK
Six things you can expect.
We listen first.
Every relationship starts with a conversation about your goals, timeline, and constraints — not a sales pitch. The strategy follows from understanding the situation.
We tell you the truth, even when it's not what you want to hear.
Sometimes the right move is to wait. Sometimes the price you want isn't realistic. Sometimes the home you're considering isn't right for you. We'll say so, even when it costs us a transaction.
We don't disappear after closing.
Most of our clients come back for their next move and refer their friends. That happens because we treat the closing as the start of a relationship, not the end.
We're available outside business hours.
Real estate doesn't keep banking hours. We're reachable in the evening, on weekends, and during the moments that matter.
We educate, not sell.
Our job is to make our clients into informed decision-makers. The more you understand the market, the better the decisions you'll make — and the more you'll trust the recommendations we give you.
We focus on the long game.
We'd rather earn 50% of the right transactions than 100% of the wrong ones. The reputation we build serves us — and our clients — for years.
Compliance & Credentials
The Best of East County Living is operated by E3 Realty & Home Loans, a California licensed real estate brokerage and mortgage broker. CA DRE #02073759. NMLS #1770437. All information on this site is provided in good faith and believed to be accurate as of publication, but should be independently verified for any specific transaction. We are an Equal Housing Opportunity company.
READY?
Let's talk about your move.
Whether it's a question, a market analysis, or a full search for your next home — we're ready when you are.