I’m curious about two things that maybe you can answer. What is the compensation package for Redfin agents and do they get “stock” options? It’s important to my biz to understand what motivates my competition and what makes them tick, and none of my competition has as much hype as this brokerage does.

I’m of the thinking that the lazy discount companies will only thrive in a hot and active market. I think that for the past several years, agents have gotten biz handed to them and many are out of touch with the true skills it takes to put a deal together. When the market cools off a bit and listings in the metro areas sit for a bit longer while buyers can afford to wait because of a stagnation in the interest rates, real estate will once move towards being a skill-driven industry. The shake-down will hopefully remove some of the dead weight in the industry and we’ll be able to demonstrate why we earn and deserve what we’re paid. I believe that any happy & satisfied sellers will agree that the commission they paid for the smooth and successful sale of their home is worth it.

I’m all for alternative business models. Even the cheesy ones bring new ideas to the forum. I see Redfin filling the needs of the buyer that Help-u-sell fills for sellers. Cheap, but not such great service. That’s okay. But what’s not okay is for the sloppy, lazy Redfin agent to whine that the full-service listing agent isn’t doing the buyer’s agent’s job for him.

It was purely coincidental that I posted 2 weeks after the moratorium. I came upon it as I was doing more research on Redfin and what their agents are paid. My friend was asking me about Redfin and the general health of our local market. He said that he heard (probably from me, via other agents) that Redfin was growing very quickly and hiring a lot of agents, and he was wondering what type of agents worked there. I wasn’t sure, but I remember someone telling me that the average agent there is paid much less than $30,000 a year as salary, and a relatively small bonus for each transaction.

I have no idea if that’s true, but if so, the general economic idea of a brain drain would probably apply. The best people in any industry will usually be drawn towards the position or company that compensates them the best. There is a small percentage of such people who do NOT follow this trend, but I would argue that they usually do it for reasons related to personal interests or altruism (e.g. a very talented individual that chooses to become the director of a non-profit vs. a bank). As such, it would seem reasonable that really experienced agents who have great skills and loads of contacts would be able to do enough business to bring in over $100,000/year, several times more than what Redfin’s experienced agents are purported to pay. Based on personal experiences, I would be so bold as to claim that many of the agents at that company are not there for altruistic reasons, which means they’re there because. . .

Any additional insight is appreciated. Ardell, I’m going to be up for at least another hour, so I’ll probably be able to help you get closer to your blogathon goals while accomplishing more research at the same time!

I am an experienced, traditional/full-service agent. As I’ve mentioned in other blogs, I don’t think that the animosity should be between traditional and non-traditional (e.g. “discount,” fee-for-service, etc) agents. Agents, like everyone else, are not all the same. I have dealt with plenty of unprofessional traditional agents, and plenty of poor non-traditional agents. The difference is that with most traditional agents that I have worked with, they promise full-service that is never delivered.

I believe that we as agents are advisors and representatives of our clients. We do our best to educate them and to empower their decisions. But in the end, decisions such as pricing are entirely theirs. If we as professionals do our best to urge our clients to price at $350,000, for example, and they are adamant on $375,000, that doesn’t mean we didn’t do our jobs.

I like Redfin’s business model and the fact that they are trying to focus on the consumers. However, I have had difficulty working with some of their agents in the past. There was a recent NYT article that made it seem like traditional agents were stone-walling Redfin agents. That may be true, but the Redfin agents that I have encounterd don’t deserve sympathy, as they never returned calls (really, never), posted incomplete listings, etc. Out and about, I have met people that told me that their Redfin agent recommended that one way to view homes prior to writing an offer was to call up a traditional agent and have them play chauffeur for a day or two. I have also had an honest, young couple working with a Redfin agent that was upfront about needing me to show them my listing prior to making an offer.

I won’t judge an entire company based on heresay and experiences with just a few of their agents, but I really think that they should make it an even greater point to hire only GOOD agents vs. agents with at least 25 deals under their belt. I’m sure we all know plenty of agents that do lots of deals that really should not be in this biz.

The fact that it didn’t sell where the owner thought it should, has more to do with the house itself, than Redfin. What the market will bear, needs to be tested. The owner’s tested the market. Ball’s in their court.

Maybe an experienced agent wouldn’t have taken it at less than $375,000. But maybe the owner would have always thought they could have gotten $50,000 more than that, if they didn’t try the higher price first.

Stop beating the drum that only an experienced, full service broker will do…or at least point to the percentage of successes vs. failures.

Singling out one failure, just makes you look bad.

disount broker. the seller got what they paid for. inadequate or non existence counsel.

RedFin just happen to be the listing broker. the listing broker could have been a brand new inexperienced full service agent or another discount broker.