Bay Area Agents: Meet Redfin
Dustin on 05 31, 2006
Looks like I’m not the only one looking to add a little more sun to my website… Today Redfin announced that they have gone live with their Bay Area real estate search and that they are planning to expand to LA soon.
Congrats Redfin.
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16 Responses to “Bay Area Agents: Meet Redfin”
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Dustin, you beat me to the post!
They also redesigned their site and it is much more usable and attractive now.
I noticed that they’re putting “days on Redfin” in their listings, which looks suspiciously like the list date. The NWMLS explicitly forbids the display of list dates so I wonder if this will fly.
Galen,
Feel free to write your own post on the announcement! I’m sure there is lots more to talk about (like the VC funding from Vulcan!).
Redfin’s facelift looks good. I’m impressed. Anyone going to their Techcrunch party tonight?
I just talked with Redfin’s Director of Marketing (Eric), and he mentioned that over 400 people are signed up! WOW! If people do attend, I’d love to hear about it!
[...] Redfin Buzz…. Rain City Guide John Cook’s Venture Blog Virtual Broker Silicon Beat San Jose Mercury News (There’s an interesting bit of misinformation in this article “… considering Redfin’s progress in the Seattle area, it has promise. Redfin’s sole agent there has completed about 20 transactions since its February launch — a quick pace for the industry — mostly by working with the tech-savvy, do-it-yourself crowd” Actually, the NWMLS lists 6 licensed agents hanging their hat at Redfin.) [...]
There’s a Mercury News article about the launch. Bay Area agents are (perhaps overly) skeptical:
“You’re going to hire a Realtor that’s probably never even looked at the home, who hands you a list of 10 inspectors?” he said. “Who’s going to guide you to what you need?”
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/14571606.htm
(via http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/venture/archives/103848.asp?source=rss)
In my story today, I noted that Redfin had helped more than 40 Seattle area buyers purchase homes. I was told that this number also includes pending transactions.
John Cook
John,
I’ll be interested to see what Marlow digs up on that number. She’s always good about digging up their actual data.
John, I’m curious about the 6 agents number. Some of them must be performing other duties, but it still seems like a lot. Any idea who they are or what they do?
Marcus Smith is the designated Broker.
The other agents are:
Allison Howard
Ryan Erickson
Bahn Lee
Rob McGarty
Bryan Selner
Edward Smith
Galen, I think it’s more like what they WILL be doing. At least 4 of the 7 were hired recently and three appear to be new agents and one newER. I think Ryan Erickson’s done a good job. I’d shake his hand for having the guts to take on the world.
We can track what each of them has done from the time they were licensed with regard to listings, but not buyer agent sales. A HUGE shortcoming of NWMLS for some reason, by policy decision. We can track closed sales by office number, but only the listing office on pendings. The company that represented the buyer doesn’t show until the sale closes, and the agent who represented the buyer never does show, only the listing agent.
Talk about the buyer side being second class citizens. I challenged that when I first arrived. Even contacted Rappatoni thinking it was a glitch in the mls system not to show the buyer agent after it closed. I never saw that anywhere except here in the Seattle area. I was assured that it was a policy decision of the NWMLS Board…why I don’t know. Just to reinforce that Listing and Seller Agency RULES?!.
Sorry…one of my pet peeves. I know these are small things, but many combined seller first/seller pays antiquated systems help keep the foot on the neck of buyers generally. That’s my $4.30
[...] Those of us in Seattle are quite familiar with Redfin but you may not be (there is a good conversation going on at Rain City). Glenn Kelman (CEO) and crew are trying to create a new type of real estate brokerage that is targeted at those buyers and sellers that do not want to pay for the services of a traditional agent. [...]
Ardell, The reason for the nwmls not to allow the posting of the selling agent goes back along ways. The primary reason for it was to stop the big brokers from actively recruiting the top agents. Before the data was as easy to get to as it is now it was costing the big brokers a lot of money to scrape the mls system I literally mean screen scrapping the data. They were using that data to recruit agent to join their company. The smaller brokers where getting their top agents picked off one by one.
For years the large brokerages have been trying to get this information added back to the mls system. But since the big broker small broker mentality is so strong in this area it never passes. I have been in many board meetings at the mls and the majority of the votes are big broker against little broker.
Thank you, Allen. I have seen a lot of progress regarding Buyer’s and Buyer Agents in the last 18 months or so. I think Redfin deserves a lot of credit for raising the bar. I am taking an Accredited Buyer Representation course, even though they won’t give me the ABR designation, and I do see agents wanting to treat buyers better than they have in the past.
Please come to Florida.
Redfin is a great source for looking up on various homes. They provide details that others sites overlook. Its a great site.