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Redfin
Rating Details »
Category: Real Estate [Edit]
710 2nd AveSte 600
(between Cherry St & Columbia St)
Seattle, WA 98104
(877) 973-3346
12 reviews for Redfin
Redfin was/is PERFECT for us. Like most people, we actually want to do most of the research ourselves, find a short list of homes and go tour them with an agent or by ourselves. Redfin steps in to help with just the things I want them for, reviewing the property for things I may have missed, talking strategy about bids, sharing expertise on the process and what is going on in the marketplace, and taking care of all the legal paperwork. Then I get a refund because I did a lot of the research work, and they get paid for the things I really wanted to use them for anyway.
I can't recommend them highly enough. And this is from a FORMER REAL ESTATE AGENT (well 10 years ago). I got involved in web startups and left the biz, so I know the game a bit.
I am a first time home buyer looking to buy a small home in Seattle. I've done all of my research and got a loan approval lined up. I enjoy searching properties on Redfin's website, so I thought I would give them a try to be my buyer's agent.
I have a busy schedule and it was very difficult to schedule a home tour at a time that worked for me. Their agents took most of the day to call me back and then would only be able to schedule showings 3-4 days out.
The biggest problem that I had is that once I finally got my showing scheduled, they STOOD ME UP! I stood there waiting at the house for them. No call, no email, nothing. I tried calling the agent's cell number and only received voice mail. This was totally rude and unprofessional. I am taking my business elsewhere. Maybe Redfin should focus on what it does best, which is its website, not its customer service.
Comment from Glenn K. of
Redfin
4/30/2009
I'm Redfin's CEO, writing to apologize. Our goal is "on tour…
More »
Redfin is a great resource for buyers (and sellers) who are internet savvy, willing to do some research and don't need their hands held through the selection process. In return for not having to spend a lot of upfront time, Redfin is able to provide you with a refund, which is a very nice perk!
As for agents, we chose Allie because of the impression she made during the Redfin home buying seminar. Her easy going personality was exactly what we were seeking. We also felt she possessed a good sense of the negotiating process and would be able to land us the best deal possible. She understood our wants and needs while balancing what she felt was the most realistic approach to dealing with the seller.
We appreciated Allie's responsiveness to our numerous "first time home buyer" questions. Upon placing our initial "offer," Allie was good about keeping us informed even if it required doing so on the weekends and evenings. We would gladly do business with Allie again and plan on recommending her to our friends entering the real estate market.
My almost condo purchase recently got converted to apartment leaving me homeless/ renting, and out looking for a new place.
Refin is great website made to help you do your on real estate purchase. It's a good way to break down homes for sale by neighborhood, recently reduced and newly listed. great reference for the general trends for neighborhood and city. Probably the most inclusive of all sites especially for cross referencing neighborhoods.
The hottest thing on the market - besides MY home, of course.
G-Pac is a genius. I can't wait to see what they do next.
P.S. Their office is pretty sweet too.
Do you know how much I love Redfin?
So much that this is the first review for a website I've ever written.
I've told no less than *everyone* who has come within a 25 foot radius of me how this is the best user interface I have ever seen.
If any of those people stick around, I continue on to tell them that Redfin not only has the best user interface for searching real estate listings, but that they also can save you a ridiculous amount of money. You will be $10,000 richer if you are buying an average house in Seattle, WA. Seriously. Damn. That's a lotta shoes.
I suggest you go over to Redfin right now. Play with the search interface. Fall in love with it. Read up on the "How Redfin Works" then come back and send me tons of compliments for introducing you to such an amazing concept.
I say concept because I haven't actually used them to buy and sell but they sure do make my OCD research for unnecessary information more fun!
When selling, you get what you pay for.
I love the idea of Redfin. As the average urban home price creeps above half-a-million dollars, taking 6% from the seller is a crime. I'm all for agents getting what they're due, but the high commissions are contributing to a lot of oafishness in the industry and the end-customers wind up losing. In good conscience, I can't support an industry where the lousiest agent routinely makes more money annually than the best high school teacher in Seattle. Sorry, agent friends, that's what I think.
So, Redfin. I'm currently selling a house with them, and I'm unfortunately getting what I'm paying for. Like most other industries that rely on personal contact to service customers, Redfin is making the worst of their hands-off approach to listing. Where a 3% agent would be bending over backward to make sure that no balls are dropped, Redfin spreads each agent thinly over a wide number of listings and there are balls all over the floor.
What's worse is that Redfin tries to sell their services with the same front originated by the worst web-based charlatans. My agent described their company as one that 'enables buyers and sellers to discover properties', which is web-speak for "we don't do squat for you besides post your house on a website". They do more than that, obviously, but you get my drift.
Their actual offerings are waning with recent crackdowns from the local real estate mafia. They do hang your sign. They don't feature or market your house, though. The popular, informative blog they had is now pointless thanks to industry crackdown. It's going to be replaced by a forum (more self-service, customer community nonsense) that could fall prey to the same MLS revolt that doomed their blog. The sole marketing for a listing is their template-driven bulk postings to http://Craigslist.org every week or so. When you do need help, you queue up for agents' attention and, though usually prompt and always friendly, very seldom get real-time service. The dropped balls and templatized solutions to issues really shade out any benefit to their sales model.
A huge benefit to listing with a large company like Windermere is the inherent nepotism between listing and buyers' agents. Buyer agents have a wealth of listings to push on their clients, and I would question Windermere's sanity if they didn't secretly encourage agents to keep the deals within their holdings. Redfin's policy of 'encouraging discovery' blows holes in that immense benefit.
The question to ask yourself is this: Will your house sell itself? Redfin isn't going to sell it for you. They're not, it's not in their business model at all to do so. They might get to the point where they're smarter about what they're doing for their customers, but for now, listing a house on Redfin is a lot of work. It's cheap though, so there's a value proposition in play that will help or hurt you, depending on your work ethic.
The last thing that should be stated, in the completion of the 'caveat emptor' discussion, is that Redfin listings are actively shunned by agents from other companies. On top of the backlash following Redfin's endorsement in the local and national press, it's common knowledge that RF's growing pains and institutionalized poor service are costly to buyers' agents. The combination of the implicit boycott of Redfin's business model and Redfin's lackluster service make selling your home an increasingly difficult prospect. So much for the money you're saving?
Update since original posting: They screwed up another promise, and my house lost visibility on the MLS for another weekend. The fourth out of four weekends. I'm lowering my rating to 2 stars and adding this paragraph, and we're going to pull our house off RF and use a friend who works at Windermere to help. Get it together, Redfin!
Bottom Line: You get what you pay for. You're potentially saving tens of thousands of dollars, which can't be ignored. As far as a service, they do slightly better than the FSBO route, but their stated business model implies that the intent is to do as little as possible to market your home. Your money gets a listing, a sign, a mention on a go-nowhere blog, and a poorly-designed PDF flyer, nothing else.
For me a real estate agent is like one of those disposable plastic rain coats. Just something you buy because it is raining and you need it right then and there, convenient but overpriced and you throw it away after you are done. Being the type A personality that I am I found our house using Redfin and bought myself a nice $9,000 lifetime supply of rain jackets with the money I got back at closing. Lol.. hopefully I didn't lose anybody on that oddball analogy. Hey it made sense in my head!
So our experience was in a nutshell: Good. I loved working with the people at Redfin and they did fight hard for us on some issues. We ended up with a great house and money in our pockets. The only downfall is that you don't get the expert market advice of a Realtor, you have to spend time looking on-line yourself, everything is over the phone, and when you are in the process of making an offer with a Redfin agent you make the decisions. It is a great concept but not for the lazy or indecisive. You work for your cut of that commission but the great thing is that money is yours after everything is said and done.
I like money.
Anything that Redfin can do to break the lock that the MLS and Realtor scammers have on the real estate market is a good thing. Go Redfin.
Make sure to check out how the real estate agents are saying about Redfin here on Yelp now. I've been told that the real estate agents are holding prayer vigils for sales. "Bring us sales, oh Lord!"
Awesome.
The more negative reviews I hear from these wage-without-labor salesmen, the more Redfin sounds like a great idea. I've worked with too many of them to respect their profession.
This is a good how-to link for Redfin.
http://www.redfin.com/...
After reading all of the realtors wank around on Yelp and talk about how they're entitled for endless amounts of riches for doing very little, I must use Redfin for my next home purchase on principal alone. I wonder if these people have ever had a job where they have to earn anything.
The comments in this thread were some of the most interesting that I have read on the subject. I suggest that you give it a read to better understand the industry and who is serving who:
http://blog.redfin.com...
My husband and I just bought our first home with Redfin and could not be happier! We had actually been seeing a few homes here and there and started using Redfin a few months into our search. We had a good idea of what we wanted and searched the website both for listings and for information on the market and surrounding neighborhoods.
We went out on several home tours and found the field agents to vary in their level of helpfulness. Some knew a lot about properties....some a little less. We actually knew what we were looking for so it wasn't an issue but it might be for people needing more guidance.
Once we decided on which home we liked, we submitted our offer and had some guidance on the process. Very smooth transaction. They recommended a home inspector who was thorough, particular, and very prompt to our request. We actually ended up doing everything over the phone, email, fax and never met our agent.....but Cheryl was great! We wish we could have met simply to say thank you.
All in all, we were very happy with Redfin. And that 2/3 refund of commission can not be beat! It covered almost all of our closing costs and helped us buy down points for out mortgage, helping us for many years to come!
I was skeptical in the beginning but this was a great decision and I would highly recommend their services to anyone.
We just closed on a purchase of a home (Richmond Beach) through Redfin. Both Judy and I have owned homes for the past 25 years. But this is the first time using the Redfin business model - on-line search coupled with Redfin service.
Our observation - an incredibly good experience. The Redfin web site beats the brick & mortar sites - Windermere, Remax, etc. Redfin is faster, better search capabilities and they show you the listing history ... i.e. history or mark-downs ... info the traditional brokerage sites don't give you.
The 'scare tactics' used by other realtors against Redfin include "they don't use good people ...". Our Redfin reps .. from the agent that we dealt with through the purchase process to the person who helped with the myriad of details through the closing ... were all pros! They know the traditional agents are saying almost anything to scare the populace away from Redfin ... and perhaps to compensate, the Redfin staff go to extremes to communicate with you, and to cover every base along the process. The result - no surprises!
Finally - the saddest commentary on all of this arises from our observations re: the 'bricks and mortar' realtors ... they damn near libel the Redfin organization and those that work for Redfin in an effort to scare purchasers (us) away from Redfin.
But after going through the process with Redfin, the losers in this process are the realtors that chose to say malicious things about Redfin when those of us that actually have experience with Redfin can attest to the opposite.
If you are purchasing a house and not using Redfin, or a similar company using the Redfin business model, I refer you to a famous idiom/proverb that you should read while gazing into a mirror ...."A fool and his money are soon parted."
Great realtor if you are prepared to be in the driver's seat. You have to do you own search. They e-mail you the papers to sign and you have to send it back. They don't offer much hand holding in guiding you in whether the property fits your style etc. They guide you along the process to make an offer, negotiate and close escrow. In return, they give you back 2/3 of their commission. It took a couple of days before they got my offer going.
