The bottom line is that they do whatever is in their own best interest, not yours. And as long as there is commission involved your interests and theirs will never be the same. You want to pay less, and they will always want you to pay more. Until recently, agents have been a necessary evil. However, I'm not implying that all agents themselves are evil. It's not personal, as they themselves might think, it's just business. And it would be foolish to overlook the obvious. The way the industry currently operates encourages agents to do what is in their interests, which often conflicts with their clients. Unethical behavior is not necessarily illegal.

So consumers who are techno-savvy enough to do their own research have a lot to gain. If you can forfeit the agent entirely, even better. Most people are much more intelligent than agents give them credit. This kind of condescension “they don't know what they don't know” is exactly what provokes their clients to do it themselves. And clients who are not very techno-savvy are probably not going to go the DIY route anyway, because most of them “do know when they don't know.” We all have friends, family, colleagues and associates who are buyers, sellers, agents, lawyers, inspectors, brokers, etc… We all gain from that experience, and the information is readily available, collective, and now easily accessible thanks to advanced technology like the Internet and Redfin. Knowledge is power, and agents no longer have a monopoly on it.

Lawyers negotiate contracts. Inspectors inspect properties. In the past, agents have found properties and given you access to the grounds. Other than that, most of them, more often than not, are pretty useless in my humble opinion. And that's a pretty obvious observation they must have pondered themselves, or they wouldn't need to keep trying to convince everyone else otherwise. I don't have anything against agents in general. However, I do think their is too much opportunity for corruption, and the industry does little to prevent this, failing to police themselves. And I won't have my interests taken for granted only to be blamed later for not doing my homework. Buyer beware!

First they make the fact that they aren?t going to actually show you any properties as a good thing. You?re empowered to go find the home you want, not the one the agent wants you to buy. Now it?s, ?we don?t prepare a stupid ol? CMA, we let you do it yourself. More empowerment.

Redfin has brought nothing new to the market. They give rebates, they didn?t invent them. What they did invent is the agent that does nothing whatsoever for his/her client. Let us all praise them for that. NWMLS appreciates their illegal tactics so much, they fined them $50,000.

this is the kind of data the public needs — the kind of data that agents/brokers keep hidden and SECRET.

if Zillow allowed the user to review sale prices in the last 60 days, then the buyer would be better informed — this is what banks do when loaning the buyer money to buy the property. this is such a simple matter and it’s remarkable that the real estate cabal has had this information hidden away this long. if redfin wants to make buyers and sellers truly informed, figure out how to get the sales price data out there on your site.

As a buyer, I would find past sales information from a year or eight years ago very helpful. It gives me a good idea of appreciation (I hope!) in the area so I know whether the home would be a good investment. Honestly, I use this feature often. If I was going to sell my condo today, I know what others in the area sold for and the appreciation percentage. I would expect the buyer to do the same to check the validity of my asking price.

Either way, it’s more information for consumers, and that in itself is valuable.

Regards,
Cynthia, Redfin

That’s the point, Cynthia. It isn’t. Even a basic CMA isn’t going to be based on year-old data. Maybe it was just a poor example, but referring to a year-old sale and the sales price of the property when it was purchased eight years ago is worthless.

Again, information such as this gives the impression of letting the public in on some vast secret when all it’s doing is providing just enough information as to be without value.

At Redfin, one of our goals to is provide open and honest information: we show everything we are allowed to from the MLS, we show past sales and tax data from the county, we even list Zestimates, although they don’t always jibe with list prices, we also recently added community and school information. All are examples of how we are using technology to give consumers the information they need to find a house, and we’ll continue to add new features and data sets.

James – if I am reading it right, you’re implying that Redfin agents don’t work with clients from offer to close, go to inspections, or provide counsel when something just doesn’t seem/look right. These are things our agents do every day. For example, we have saved customers countless thousands of dollars during inspection – we find mold, water damage, etc. just like any other agent, and negotiate a better price for our customers. I do agree with your statement, “As a buyer who buys on average a house every 7 years vs a productive agent who goes through double, triple or more home purchases than that in a single year, there’s simply no comparison in terms of who would have the upper hand in a transaction. No amount of online information can compete with that level of knowledge and experience.” You’ve just explained the benefits of Redfin – we combine Redfin.com’s 24/7 online information with local agents whom handle tens of transactions a month.

Cynthia, Redfin