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 2025, just through August, Ann represented buyers and sellers in more than $100 million in closed transactions, surpassing her previous record sales totals. She has an additional $23+ million in sales pending in escrow, and has properties now on the market worth $45 million more. Over the last four years, she has handled $400 million in closed transactions. One of them, 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 (surpassing one of her own prior sales, that previously set the record in Happy Valley). Ann is 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 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.

 

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 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 telecommunications sales 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 made her prominent in her focus areas: Orinda, Lafayette, Moraga, Danville and Alamo. Because of her involvement in Claremont Country Club, she is well known in Piedmont and Berkeley as well; in Piedmont, for example, Ann has handled two of the five largest transactions to close in the last twelve months.

 

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 quickly became one of the most successful agents in the San Francisco Bay Area.