…what might be important is if the redfin product and concept will float as a business.

your criticisms are apparently based on your experience as a broker and running a brokerage firm.

thus your comment(s) about retaining agents and so forth.

my experience is as a home buyer/seller.

if redfin steps up to the plate and moves into more of a web 2.0 service, allowing for more openness and user-generated data, then it it has more than a shot at making it.

and not because it’s a discount broker (as you continue to refer to them as — despite Glenn pointing out that marketing and business philosophy are not the same thing)…but because they help to revolutionize a business that has a terrible service element; namely real estate agents.

agents don’t all suck – but the rates we home buyers/sellers pay generally do. and by suck i mean that the commission cost is way out of step with the service.

note that you brokers NEVER pay full commission if you can avoid it…and would balk if you had to…so you can sympathize.

or maybe you can’t.

anyway, the question is not will redfin make it, but why wouldn’t it?

if they can increase openness in the real estate market, they will succeed.

the next step for redin is publishing the closing sales price.

then we can all see how much the products are listed for, how long they’re on the market and what they sell for — the holy of holies that is kept secret by the whole profession as established by the NAR.

redfin WILL pickup sellers like i said — by word-of-mouth. all they need is for their product to work like they say it does most of the time and the sellers will come.

why? because nobody wants to pay the brokerage fee for opaque services. they want transactional agents and that’s all — and anyone would pay for that, especially when the other option (of working with a conventional broker) is so much more costly.

Thanks for you in-depth insight on Redfin. However it was you that missed the point here! This article was about them representing buyers not sellers. The reason they don’t mention sellers is because there numbers are far below average when it comes to listings.

As far as the IPO goes this is one I will pass on. You have zip realty struggling and other discounters struggling plus entering into a slower market in 6 months lets review Redfins numbers. Remember that buyer acquisition cost increase dramatically when there are fewer buyers. As I see it the last thing Redfin needs is more costs.

redfin is (apparently) not a real estate brokerage firm, and thus, does not live or die by the success benchmarks you know and use to judge with.

redfin is appears to be a virtual sales nexus with a low-cost service component.

most of the real value will go to the seller and that is the hook. when folks figure out they can stage, list and sell their properties and save tens-of-thousands, they will.

buyers can still use their trusted agents or cruise the mls online or via redfin or other cool listing sites.

but when the buyer walks in the door, they are looking at a redfin listing.

and what is a redfin listing?

it’s a SELLER listing.

and what is a SELLER listing? one that can save both parties lots of money and cut down on agent-generated sales voodoo — (i.e., agents can and do hike up and pull down on closing costs through untoward influence over the buyer/seller — nobody doubts this and redfin offers a clear option that avoids it).

the real estate brokerage industry has long been in need of an enema. too much opacity, too little honesty across the board and too few market restrictions to benefit the average home owner and buyer. who doesn’t know of the anecdotal case where a property is bought up “cheap” buy an agent in the same office as the listing agent, only to be flipped in 4 months…?

real estate for the investor, the developer, speculator and so forth is one thing — and it is a place for the capable middle-man to make some commission-based revenue.

but home owner sales and the residential housing market should not be primarily for the benefit of lenders, investors, agents and the like; the market and all of the product is really for the user and they are tired of insane prices and fees.

your criticisms of the redfin business model seem to be about “will you make your model work?” — fine.

but the point is that your criteria for “working” are based on making x% commissions as a brokerage firm and not about serving the customer.

it looks like the key to the whole redfin thing is that sellers and buyers will GLADLY work with a partner company that is trusted, seems to do what it claims and apparently saves money. that’s all they need to come in droves.

it doesn’t look like the word-of-mouth has really started with redfin – but when and if it does kick in, it seems obvious that folks will jump on it like they did with TiVO (no middle men on TV), with Netflix (why go to a video store again?) and with iPods (record shop??).

the local real estate agent that can deal with the transition is here to stay – but they will be listing with redfin or a second gen version of redfin (the word on the street is Google is moving into Ebay-like sales listing and soon real estate too).

so don’t worry your little head neophyte — instead why don’t you instead try to find out when redfin goes public so we can all get in on that IPO, huh?

Sorry to say not only am I not a Realtor Im also not a real estate agent or broker. I am however very interested in the industry. I have been using and watching redfin since they went live. I feel their technology was cutting edge but their business logic is very flawed IMMHO. I do however know what it takes to run a real estate brokerage and also what it takes to keep the doors open. One of the biggest challenges in a real estate brokerage industry is trying to retain your top producers. This is one factor I feel is very flawed with Redfin. Their agent offering may be very attractive for a new agent. But once that agent gets a few deals under their belt and learns how to deal with online buyers they will quickly realize for the same effort they could easily have a much larger income working in a traditional situation. As I said in an earlier post they could still discount but no need to discount at the Redfin level. It is human nature to want to succeed especially in sales people.

The reason I posted here was when I read the press release in the PI it made me do a double take. My first thought was that’s ridiculous and that continues to be my thought. Since the Redfin program has the buyer make the offer and the agent just presents it how much skill do the redfin agents currently have or need?

Ahmed Anies
( Egyptian Real estate Agent )
( Egyptian Real Estate BLOGGER )
Phone: (002)+ 016 1334420
Email: info@egypt-realestate-agent.com
site: http://www.egypt-realestate-agent.com