Elva E Yamanaka

Elva Yamanaka has been building a thriving real estate career, grounded in her deep love for people, for the last 15 years. What began as an opportunity to better serve her family and keep her schedule more flexible for her children blossomed into a true passion. Specializing in short sales and foreclosures since the economic crisis, Elva has found her gift for helping others move into the next stage of their lives and step out of what no longer works for them. She currently serves the San Diego community, including La Jolla, where she has lived and worked since 2015, and the remainder of San Diego County.

Elva and her family moved to San Diego from Palm Desert in order to support her daughter’s transition to university at UCSD. Previously, Elva had been serving the real estate needs of both buyers and sellers in Imperial Valley and the Coachella Valley. Elva enjoys working with buyers and sellers and can see the value in gaining expertise in both. With an abiding love of architecture and design, Elva takes each home she stages for her sellers to heart, and she treats her new buyers as she would her own grown children, guiding and nurturing them along the complex real estate path. Her deeply empathetic yet highly organized and attentive approach to her work has gained her a loyal following and tremendous success.

Before she was in real estate, Elva worked in property management at a retirement community, where she worked closely with people in the later years of their lives. And prior to that, she was a licensed insurance agent, where she learned the value of only selling something you truly believe in and giving your whole self to it. Her first career as an adult was as a business owner in manufacturing and engineering. Over time, Elva has earned her reputation as an astute businesswoman with her finger on the pulse of entrepreneurship and emerging software technologies as well as a warm hearted and compassionate mother figure, taking her new clients under her wing.

Elva is proud to have mastered the work life balance, taking time for her own self-care as well as for her family. She likes to stay involved with her church and in her son’s high school sports and extracurriculars. In her free time, she enjoys spending time at the beach, cooking, knitting, and traveling, especially to Hawaii to visit her oldest daughter.