A Two Week Moratorium for Redfin Critics

[photopress:wedding_1.png,full,alignright] You are cordially invited to a two week Moratorium on “Sticking it to the Man”. I know Greg and others have been having a lot of fun poking at Redfin, but I would like to announce that Glenn Kelman of Redfin is getting married this weekend.

Glenn and I discussed not discussing anything we discussed at our little tete-a-tete. But I would be remiss if I did not publicly congratulate him on his upcoming nuptials. Let’s give him the gift of being able to focus on his Once in a Lifetime Event, by applying the old adage, “If you don’t have something NICE to say, don’t say anything at all”.

I remember the first time I heard about Redfin. I was at a listing appointment and a young couple thinking about selling their condo in Issaquah said, “Did you see this really cool site?” They pulled up Redfin on their computer and showed me how they could “fly around” looking at property. They LOVED it. You can hardly run into a buyer, especially younger ones, here in the Seattle area who have not heard about Redfin. That is a fabulous accomplishment and it is time to give credit where credit is due.

So if you have something really NICE to say about Redfin, say it here! If you don’t have something nice to say, then let’s keep it zipped for a couple of weeks, and cut the guy some slack, so he can enjoy his pre and post wedding time.

Congratulations Glenn!

More Bed Hopping with the Competition

  1. Matt Goyer, of Urbnlivn fame, just accepted a position at Redfin. I wonder if he’ll keep up urbnlivn, or quit in favor of the Redfin blog like Rob. Just reading that article about Rob reminds me how much things have changed in the past six months…
  2. Anthony Allan put together a nice post on five steps to Realtor nirvana.
  3. Tim shows the Seattle Bubble is more popular than Rain City Guide! And wants a front-page link from RCG in the same post! I like Merv’s approach to giving site stats better (i.e. keep me out of it!) 🙂
  4. Meanwhile, the classic over-achiever (who happens to be a damn good writer) follows Tim’s lead today and shows me up by taking my idea (list of 10) and doing it better
  5. Niki let me know about the massive updates that he just unrolled at HomeThinking. He’s got a pretty comprehensive database of sold listings and my understanding is that he is attempting to get people to review agents for as many transactions as possible. It might sound unintuitive for agents to support a site that allows users to comment on them, but Nike (and Mike of Altos Research) seem convinced. Niki also mentioned a bunch of interesting features including a GeoRSS feed of his data so that it can be syndicated far and wide.
  6. I also noticed that HomeThinking is syndicating Real Time Pricing Trends from Altos Research in selected markets. Here’s their chart for Seattle:
  7. Prices for SEATTLE

  8. Osman writes about an interesting “green” development in Aurora, CO that would “encompass nearly 3,000 housing units, 1.7 million SQFT of retail, and 2.8 million SQFT of office space” if fully built out!
  9. Remembering Katrina.
  10. Google now allows you to download and print out old books that they’ve scanned from some of the nations largest libraries. Very cool. Not only that, but they recently introduced a news archive search that has scanned 200 years worth of news. Wow!
  11. Not only is Noah is off enjoying a trip in Europe at this moment, but he should be officially mawwied by now. Congratulations!