The Attorney and Global Marketing Veteran Who Built a Top One and a Half Percent California Real Estate Career in Six Years

John Wei at Nexa Lending welcomed Kenneth Peng of Serhant Realty to the Beyond the Listing podcast for one of the most analytically sharp conversations about the Silicon Valley and San Francisco Peninsula real estate market, the three distinct waves the Bay Area has experienced in 2026 alone, why uncertainty is the real driver of buyer hesitation rather than rates, and what makes the current moment a genuine opportunity for buyers who can separate perception from reality.

Kenneth brings a background that is genuinely unusual in real estate. He is a licensed attorney. He spent fifteen to twenty years in global marketing and advertising working on multi-million dollar campaigns across multiple countries and cultures. He then transitioned into consumer technology startups for several years before his wife suggested real estate during a career transition moment. He did not immediately say yes. He woke up the next morning, looked into it, and within six years built a practice that ranks in the top one and a half percent of California realtors by volume with over a hundred million dollars in transaction volume over five years. He joined Serhant, Ryan Serhant's brokerage known as the most-followed real estate brand in the world, as part of their California expansion.

He operates from San Francisco down through the peninsula to just south of Palo Alto, serving clients across approximately ninety square miles of some of the most concentrated wealth in the country.

How the Bay Area Market Has Moved in 2026

Kenneth offers a framework for the current market that cuts through a lot of the noise. He identifies three distinct waves within 2026 alone driven not primarily by interest rates but by certainty and uncertainty. When people feel certain about their situation and the world around them they buy. When uncertainty spikes they retract. The rate is a factor but it is secondary to the psychological state of the buyer pool.

This year started with the AI-driven wave that created significant activity particularly in San Francisco around Mission Bay, Dog Patch, and SoMa where a younger tech employee demographic was purchasing condos and high-rise units. The peninsula saw some of that energy but not as much because the buyer profiles and price points differ. San Francisco has more inventory symmetry across neighborhoods for a given budget. The peninsula is city by city, neighborhood by neighborhood, with meaningful price differences across short geographic distances.

Then as summer arrived and rates climbed back toward seven percent after briefly touching the high fives, buyer activity contracted. The people who were positioned and acted just before summer captured a meaningful window. Those who hesitated found themselves in a market with less inventory and more rate pressure. Kenneth identifies buyers in the one to one and a half million range as the most affected segment, both financially through lost purchasing power of one hundred to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and psychologically through eroded confidence.

The current fall market is where he sees the real opportunity emerging for buyers willing to step in while others remain uncertain.

The Over-List Under-List Fallacy

Kenneth identifies one of his biggest frustrations in how the market gets reported. Properties selling above or below the list price is one of the most cited statistics in real estate coverage and in his view one of the least meaningful.

List price is a marketing decision. It reflects the agent's pricing strategy not an objective measure of value. A property that sells at forty percent over list in a neighborhood where strategic under-pricing is standard practice may have sold at market value. A property that sells at five percent under list may have been overpriced from the start. The only number that matters is the end price and whether it reflects the actual market value of the property in its current condition and location.

This is a perspective shaped by his marketing background. He spent twenty years understanding how numbers and narratives are constructed to influence perception. He applies that skepticism to real estate market statistics consistently.

Why Uncertainty Is the Opportunity

Kenneth's most important insight for buyers in the current market is one that sounds counterintuitive. The uncertainty that is keeping most buyers on the sidelines is precisely what creates the advantage for buyers who move forward.

When certainty returns to the market everyone acts simultaneously. That is when competition intensifies, negotiating leverage disappears, and prices reflect peak demand. The buyers who bought during the early pandemic uncertainty, the 2009 to 2010 uncertainty, and other periods of elevated fear captured the best relative values. The buyers who waited until the world felt certain enough paid peak prices.

He makes a specific point about absolute prices versus borrowing costs. The absolute price of homes in the markets he serves is lower relative to historical trends than it has been at any point in the past six years. The cost of borrowing is higher. If rates normalize even partially over the next three years the buyer who purchased now will have accessed a price point they simply will not be able to access later because appreciation will have moved prices higher regardless of what rates do.

He uses Burlingame versus Redwood City or San Mateo as the concrete example. Buyers who could only consider mid-peninsula cities a year ago may now be able to access Burlingame. That geographic and neighborhood upgrade will not be available when certainty returns and the full buyer pool reenters simultaneously.

For Sellers: It Depends, and Condition Matters More Than Ever

Kenneth's advice for sellers is more nuanced and explicitly case-by-case. He pushes back against the idea that there is one universal recommendation for sellers in the current environment.

The condition of the property matters enormously in a market that is somewhat softer. A poorly conditioned home that might have sold easily in 2021 because buyers were so desperate will face meaningful headwinds in the current market where buyers have options and are exercising them. Sellers who cannot or will not prepare their property appropriately need to have realistic conversations about what the market will actually pay rather than what they hope for based on 2021 comps.

For sellers who need to sell the current market offers one genuine advantage. There is less competing inventory than during active markets. A well-prepared, well-priced listing may be the only real option for buyers in a specific neighborhood and that dynamic can produce strong results even in a challenging rate environment.

For sellers who do not need to sell and who have owned for a long time the calculus is different. Staying put, renting the property, or leveraging existing equity to purchase a rental investment in California or elsewhere may produce better outcomes than selling into a softer market when there is no urgent need to do so.

What Sets Kenneth Apart in a Market Full of Experienced Agents

Kenneth's answer to the differentiation question is genuinely thoughtful and grounded in his biography rather than his marketing materials. Most buyers in the Bay Area are not from the Bay Area. They arrive from other cities, states, and countries. They have different cultural backgrounds, different family structures, different experiences of what home and community mean.

An agent whose entire frame of reference is the Peninsula they grew up on is offering tenure-based knowledge that is valuable in specific ways and limited in others. Kenneth's frame of reference spans continents, industries, and life stages. When a buyer arrives from Toronto, New York, Los Angeles, or overseas he finds the common ground quickly because he has lived in enough places and done enough different things to find it. That connection is not superficial because it is not manufactured. It comes from a life that has actually been that varied.

He also identifies the three core segments of real estate practice clearly. Leads, which provide business. Relationship building, which makes people feel understood and trusted in the first five seconds of an interaction. And paperwork and negotiation, which move deals forward and protect clients through the transaction. His marketing background gave him a foundation in leads and relationships before he ever had a listing. The negotiation skill came from years of multi-million dollar advertising deals and high-deadline creative environments where the stakes and personalities were just as real.

The Three Things Clients Say About Working With Him

When Kenneth describes what clients consistently tell him three themes emerge. They felt thoroughly informed through the process, particularly about disclosures and the real implications of what they were seeing and signing. They felt safe in the sense of believing he understood them and was representing their actual interests rather than his own transaction incentives. And they felt the benefit of relationships he had built with agents on the opposing side, which allowed deals to come together in ways that more adversarial approaches would have prevented.

Persuasion, in his framing, is a power that needs to be used appropriately. Using it to push someone toward a transaction because you know you can is a misuse of the trust someone has placed in you. Using it to help someone commit to a decision that is genuinely right for their situation is what it is for.

Serhant and Why He Made the Move

Kenneth spent time at Compass and valued the experience. His decision to join Serhant as part of their California expansion came from wanting to be one of few rather than one of many. Serhant's marketing and creative infrastructure aligned with the marketing orientation he has always brought to his listings and the brand's global reach and media presence gives his sellers access to a promotional engine that most regional brokerages cannot match.

He also wanted to distinguish his positioning in a market where many top agents carry the same brokerage affiliation. Being an early member of the Serhant California team accomplishes that while connecting him to a brand whose audience is genuinely massive.

How to Reach Kenneth Peng

Call or text 415-475-9159. He responds fast, often before the sender has set their phone down. Visit ownsqft.com. Find him on Instagram at @sqftbyken. He serves buyers and sellers from San Francisco through the Peninsula to just south of Palo Alto and is happy to connect with anyone trying to understand their options whether they are ready to transact now or building toward a future purchase.

John Wei at Nexa Lending works with buyers throughout the Bay Area on mortgage financing. Reach out to John Wei to connect on the lending side of any Silicon Valley or San Francisco Peninsula transaction.

Sources

SiliconValleyAssociationofRealtors.com
NAR.realtor
MortgageNewsDaily.com
ConsumerFinancialProtectionBureau.gov
Investopedia.com