MEET ANN

Ann Newton Cane has real estate in her blood; she was raised on a large cattle ranch near the Oregon-California border, where her parents and siblings still live.

In 2022, Ann represented buyers and sellers in more than $80+ million in transactions, surpassing her previous record sales total for 2021. One of her transactions, representing the seller of a Happy Valley property in Lafayette, produced the highest price of any Lafayette sale ever reported on the Multiple Listing Service. Ann not only quickly became the largest sales producer in the Golden Gate Sotheby’s Lafayette Office; in 2022, Ann was No. 1 in sales volume for all of Contra Costa County for Golden Gate Sotheby’s International Realty. She has been recognized as a Top Producer for every year since 2019. San Francisco magazine named her one of the top realtors in all of Northern California, and the highest-ranking individual realtor based in the Lamorinda area (Lafayette, Orinda and Moraga) in San Francisco’s East Bay. She started in real estate in 2019, and in 2020-23 alone she handled nearly $200 million in residential sales, representing both buyers and sellers.

Ann’s professional career before real estate amply prepared her for sophisticated transactions like these. After graduating from the University of California at Davis in 1986, Ann joined the then-upstart MCI, selling telecommunications services. She raced through the sales ranks, earning every MCI honor possible for taking business away from the behemoth AT&T. She remained at MCI following its later merger, managing the company’s relationships with key global accounts such as Times Mirror, Nissan, First Interstate Bank, Kaiser Permanente, Amgen, and Wells Fargo Bank. Dick Notebaert, CEO of Qwest Communications (later CenturyLink, now Lumen) then persuaded Ann to join him as Qwest’s Director of the California region, responsible for West Coast global accounts. Ann negotiated complex transactions with these sophisticated businesses and others. Her sales in telecommunications ran into the billions of dollars.

Ann then took a break from full-time work to raise her two children, Paul William III and Katherine. Ann devoted herself to community activities and other volunteer work, including service on the College Preparatory School’s Board of Trustees; leadership positions in the National Charity League; Parents’ Club President at the Orinda Intermediate School; Swimming Chair of the Meadow Swim and Tennis Club; President of the Homeowners’ Association of the Grand Lodge in Deer Valley, Utah; and service on the Membership Development Committee at the Claremont Country Club in Oakland. 

​​​​​​​Ann’s community involvement makes her prominent in her focus area: Orinda, Lafayette, Moraga and Alamo. Because of her involvement in Claremont Country Club, she is prominent in Piedmont as well.

Ann is married to a lawyer, Paul Cane, and their children both graduated from (and competed in swimming for) Dartmouth College. When their children reached college, Ann set off in her new career in real estate sales and in less than two years became the most successful agent in her office and one of the most successful in all of the San Francisco Bay Area.