Zip Code East Bay is a boutique real estate practice located in Kensington, CA. With a focus on building community through real estate, Zip Code East Bay helps clients navigate the home buying and selling experience with innovative strategies, knowledgeable problem solving and creative energy.
Founded in 2012 by Josh Dickinson, Zip Code East Bay specifically utilizes green, community and family-oriented practices to serve homeowners, buyers and sellers in the East Bay with the belief that awareness, education and engagement are key to thriving, authentic communities.
GREEN
As members of the National Association of Realtor’s Green Designation, we take environmental awareness and action very seriously. We provide financial and logistical contributions to help make your home more energy efficient, regularly share tips and resources on how to increase environmental sustainability at home, and creatively partner with other local green businesses to ensure that our footprint is light but our efforts to enact more green lifestyles are far-reaching.
Our focus on environmental sustainability is rooted in the background of our founder, Josh Dickinson. Before getting into real estate, Josh worked for 15 years as an environmental engineer in non-profit, academia and the private sector, with a focus on water reuse and reclamation. He holds three degrees including an MBA from the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland; Master of Science from Johns Hopkins University and Bachelor of Science from the University of Notre Dame. Discovering he could employ his environmental interests and passions in his real estate practice was the icing on the cake, and as a team we constantly strive to be as green as possible in our professional and personal lives.
COMMUNITY
Serving our community is a large part of our identity and we love to do it creatively through education and involvement. Whether it’s by sharing green-living tips, local historical facts, neighborhood parks or information about where your utilities come from, you can be sure that what we are up to is interesting, useful, and contributing to the improvement of our beloved East Bay! We also give our time and resources to local non-profits such as Give Back Homes, Kensington Education Foundation, Kensington Nursery School, and other wonderful groups who share our belief that direct participation and helping one another is key to maintaining the diverse and vibrant energy that makes living in the East Bay so great.
On any given day you will find various members of the Zip Code East Bay team out and about coaching little league teams, leading volunteer workshops in the public schools, working at the local preschool co-op science fair, feeding animals at Little Farm, running on the trails through Tilden, marching in the community parade, performing at local coffee shops or sitting on the front porch sharing a glass of wine with neighbors. One of our favorite mottos is that there are so many things to do in our community and never enough hours in the day!
FAMILY
One could argue that there is nothing more important than family. Zip Code East Bay was started because our founder became a realtor to better support his own family, but also because he gained immense satisfaction from being helpful to others. This familial spirit is central to who we are, and it is a core value cherished by the entire Zip Code East Bay team. This means that we do everything we can to help you and your family and to welcome you into ours, during your home sale or purchase, and beyond. From assisting with even the most minute personal logistics such as arranging for dog sitting while your house is on the market, or playing with your kids in the yard while you check out a new listing in your favorite neighborhood, to being your go-to resource for all things house and neighborhood related, such as helping you with refinance advice, even if you have no immediate plans to buy or sell. In other words, we welcome you as are part of our extended family in every sense of the word.
Many people view the purchase or sale of a property as a finite transaction, but we believe it is something much greater. We believe that a house is more than the literal definition of shelter or a mere financial asset, and that a street address is more than a physical location on a map. A house, and your neighborhood community, are--or should be--where your heart is; they should serve as the backdrop for memory-making, for living life to the fullest, for loving and being loved in whatever life stage you are at. These decisions of buying and selling homes figure deeply into your life story and experience, and we are honored to facilitate the process for you every step of the way.