California Home Pros expands after 2 decades

For over two decades, Tilo and Jenny Cortez have served the greater Kern County Community and beyond with their real estate and property management company, California Home Pros. With a commitment to excellence of the highest quality, they have helped many families achieve the American dream of owning their own home.

Their business continues to expand, and the company purchased the old PG&E building to grow its business and renovated the location for its new office last year. To celebrate, they will host a joint grand opening and pop-up with Pop's Barber Shop on Saturday, Jan. 27, at 1 p.m., in the parking lot at 1136 7th St.

This outreach event aligns with the Cortez's mission of community service. Both are longtime Wasco residents and have contributed immensely to Wasco over the years. In 2022, they were honored as the Grand Marshals for the Wasco Rose Parade. Tilo also served as mayor and was on the City Council as a member for 17 years.

Jenny said, "It's important for us to give back. If you are going to live in a community, you should do your best to make it the best place it could be for everybody."

The Cortez way is to take their clients through a methodical process that gets them where they want to be.

"The first step is getting a potential buyer pre-qualified, and our business partner Sherry Knapp with California Home Loans is the lender that pre-qualifies them," Jenny said.

"We've been in business for so many years that we've seen pretty much every scenario, and even when someone doesn't qualify, when they come in, we work with them and put them on a path to qualify. Whether it's their dream or first home, we will walk them through the entire process."

She said it's key to keep in mind a buyer's budget. "We want them to have a house payment they can comfortably afford."

Next is finding where the buyer would like to live, local or anywhere in the state. However, the company focuses mainly on Kern County, including Wasco, Shafter, Bakersfield, Taft, Tehachapi, Delano and Maricopa.

"We show homes in those areas but also list homes for sale there. All our agents are realtors, which means they have had extra training above and beyond just getting their real estate license."

Jenny explained that when they list a home, they do a market analysis to ensure her sellers are listing at the best price for them.

"We market it on the multiple listing service, which reaches all the real estate agencies in Kern County. And the listings will also appear on Zillow and Realtor.com. We feel that the more exposure we get for our listing, the better it will be for our clients."

Recently, California Home Pros started doing property management, handling people's rentals and leasing, screening the renters and doing everything necessary to get people into the rentals.

"We have a system that does full background, eviction and credit checks, and we make sure that the people you put into those homes are responsible renters."

California Home Pros is open Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and weekends and nights by appointment. For more information, call 661-758-9009.