Silicon Valley Real Estate

I am a full-time, second generation, award-winning & enthusiastic Realtor. (My mother, Pat Pope, was a highly regarded & successful Realtor in the San Jose, Santa Clara, Cupertino and Saratoga areas from 1956 until her death in 1996.) Real estate was my second career after I'd worked happily in the area of religious education (in Catholic high schools) & ministry for several years. Economics necessitated an employment change, and real estate was a natural fit as it really is a "helping profession" and I'd grown up with it. I like to joke that my first words were "raised foundation".  

An area native, I was raised in Santa Clara and Saratoga, attending public and Catholic schools, and graduated from Saratoga High in 1977. As an adult I lived in several parts of the valley, including 10 years in Cambrian Park, and since 1999, in Los Gatos.

I hold a Bachelor of Arts from Gonzaga University in Spokane (a Catholic university run by Jesuits - in Religious Studies, 1981) and thanks to my parents' generosity, was able to enjoy a fabulous Junior year abroad at Gonzaga-in-Florence, Italy (1979-1980), which cemented my love of travel and all things Italian. (With some refreshing, I can still manage a simple conversation in Italian - which is fun!) After some teaching, I earned a Master of Arts (in Systematic Theology, 1986) from The Graduate Theological Union/Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. Afterwards I returned to teaching religion in Catholic high schools, a very rewarding career, for a few years, until our children came onto the scene. I did a lot of related volunteer work too, with my favorite being as a volunteer chaplain at Good Samaritan Hospital in the early 90's. Additionally, I worked in the Rainbows Program at our parish, St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Los Gatos. Rainbows is a peer-to-peer ministry/support group for kids suffering from any major loss, such as the death of a parent or divorce.

My husband, Jim Handy, analyzes the semiconductor market. He grew up in many places due to his father's line of work and speaks French and he too loves to travel; eons ago we honeymooned in Tahiti on Bora Bora where he got to practice his language skills (between their Polynesian French and his Belgian-Swiss-American accent it got interesting at times). We have been very happily married since 1985. Jim has been a Parks Commission volunteer in the Town of Los Gatos for years, so I get a lot of interesting information about the town's doings from him!

Our two children, Brian & Clair, are now teenagers. Real estate is inescapable for them, as it had been for me, and when Clair was in second grade she said, "uh oh Mommy, we have termites!" and had correctly spotted the telltale drywood termite pellets on our hardwood floor; I suspect she was the only second grader with the ability to correctly identify termite activity. So, real estate is a little contagious! The kids do some assisting for me in summers and are a big help. Like their parents, they love to travel and together we've been in much of the US, plus parts of Mexico, England, France, Switzerland, Italy, and Japan.  Brian is now a freshman at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, having graduated from four happy years at Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose. Clair is currently a senior at Notre Dame High School in downtown San Jose.

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