We’ve been experimenting with messages in various locations across Redfin.com. Recently, we placed an announcement in a message box at the top of our map page. Once the box is closed, it disappears until we run a new message. When we released the latest version of Redfin.com, we ran our first message this space announcing… Read More
“Did hell just freeze over?” Redfin’s Bryan Selner asked me late last night. For a moment, I thought someone at Redfin had spontaneously washed the dishes. But Bryan was talking about Redfin’s posting yesterday on Bloodhound, one of the largest Realtor blogs, about which of our site’s search filters are most popular, and which filters… Read More
After reading a TechCrunch post on Animoto, the new make-a-music-video-of-your-photos website, we decided to give it a quick shot for one of our own listings, in Bellevue (we had to use a Redfin listing because it’s copyright-infringement to take another broker’s): I wanted to use Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” for the music, but we don’t… Read More
A strange thing happened in online real estate last Friday. After three years of fierce competition and $100+ million in venture capital, TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld finally asked real estate websites the $24,000 question: who has the most homes for sale? “The most important success factor for these sites,” Erick writes, “is how comprehensive they are.”… Read More
In a darkened, rank room the size of a windowless van, ten Redfin folks spent most of this week peering through one-way glass at people trying to search Redfin’s site. We expected to be embarrassed. And sure enough, I was often flushed at all the ways we could have made our software simpler. But what… Read More
The Donald bailed Ed McMahon out of foreclosure today. Maybe Trump plans to single-handedly fix the housing slump? Ed’s home in Beverly Hills doesn’t seem to fit Donald’s gold-plated style, but a Redfin Forums poster pointed out a stunna in Northridge he should consider. It’s supposed to be a replica of Graceland, but I’ve been… Read More
Redfin’s new neighborhoods release inspired all sorts of reactions. Many, like The Tim on SeattleBubbleBlog, lauded the new release as “a great resource for figuring out what’s going on in the hyper local real estate markets.” Some, such as Alex Coon after studying the price-reductions data for Boston’s South End, waxed poetic: “Like Icarus, the… Read More
Around 1 a.m. last night, after spending a few hours cruising blogs and watching YouTube cycling videos, I found myself up against it and hastily wrote a post about Redfin’s stunning new release that referred to developer Robert Gay as a “man-child.” What I meant by this was a compliment: that, at the tender age… Read More
Redfin released a big, beautiful new version of its website last night. For the first time in years, there’s a whole new web page on the site — not just a map and a web page for each property on the map — but a set of graphs, pictures, charts, numbers showing all the pricing… Read More
Redfin’s real estate scientists published a big, glorious new report today on when homes will sell for a big discount and when they won’t, based on thousands of home sales across the country. We spent two months grinding through the data because every day, we see buyers with born-to-lose tattoos on their foreheads making lowball… Read More