The first change of many… the model is broken!

I think this is great. I would have used redfin to buy my home, but I toured so many places it would have put me in the poorhouse.
This is a much needed change that I hope produces a ton of business for you!

Gorgeous upgrade to the website. Site is super-crisp. Totally jealous!

Way to go on this release, it looks great and it’s a big step up for customers. Good work.

I think you should modify this a little.
While i understand that having many tours cost you time and therefore money. For this option i see why having to reduce the refund.
But, say if i never dealt with you before, and i found a house that i like either by my own or by having 1 or 2 tours with you, i think you should still refund the 66%. If I happen to tour more than that, i see and understand the logic to cut the refund.
There are still some companies that refund more than 50% and even 66%…

[...] Washington, DC « Our Shot at the Mass Market [...]

really like this model – so much simpler! get 50% back is huge, especially if you are dealing with a knowledgeable agent (this will be the key)
commission paid on satisfaction, now that’s really brilliant!
keep up the good work.

I was hoping pool/no pool would be an option.

I liked the upgrade til I tried to view the Bird’s Eye View map facing different directions. None of them work. I loved this feature on the old format.

Glenn, the site upgrade has broken something in a really weird way. It turns out that the favorites page references google – but if you’ve blocked google analytics (via Ad Blocker Plus), the page fails to load.

Complete unintuitive that google analytics causes the Redfin favorites page to fail….

@polusfx:

Send me an e-mail at sasha.aickin at redfin, and we’ll try to figure out what’s going on. Google Analytics is on every one of our pages, and has been for almost two years, so it’s a bit odd that it would stop working with this upgrade.

Please include as many details as possible, including what browser you use, what the page looks like, and why you think that Ad Blocker Plus is to blame.

Site looks great, guys, thank you! I think you should take it one step further and charge for access to expanded information. Take everything everyone likes about Propertyshark.com and blend that into your UI and charge a yearly/monthly fee. Matching the kind of information Realtors have through title companies. I find myself constantly switching back and forth between redfin and propertyshark and think that your formula would be spectacular for both. Then you can at least tap into some money that won’t flow to you through commissions.

[...] is constantly improving their search technology (which is amazing), and recently announced a restructuring of their commission structure and services offered. Meanwhile, newcomer Findwell is doing their best to make headlines and get their name out there, [...]

I wish the banks would become more innovative on how they sell their inventory.

As a broker, I’ve really liked the way Redfin’s website works and their customer service philosophy, It’s how I’ve always treated my clients, but when I looked to join RedFin as an agent, it’s virtually impossible to earn a decent living. Maybe that is why they only have 1 agent for all of Orange County. Too bad.

Was this where I left my comment about Tim at the Seattle Bubble?

OK you got my email address, website, but my comment is missing.

The Tim guy should be getting $200K, up front, for adding credibility here.

Isn’t this called “Jumping The Shark”? Nice spin though. I actually think it is a good move to grow the company.

Website is acting weird for me today. When I try to view the map, I see large black lines all over the place.

Couldn’t get maps to search and load today.

@Amanda and Janae: We’re on it. Looks like a problem with our mapping partner. Hopefully we can get it resolved ASAP. Thanks for letting us know.

Of course this was the place, I think, this is avery confusing site that seems to have some problems, but hey it’s cheap, with the cash back and all.

I’m very curious about the negative comments that seem to disappear from this site and the positive spin that reappears in it’s place.

I also went over to the forums to find some attorneys offering to write up deals for even less money, will those solicitations stay?

Let me say again, the Tim guy from the Seattle Bubble at http://www.seattlebubble.com has brought you credibility. You should pay him up front. Be fair.

From: The Borg, Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Best of Both Worlds” (1990)

“Strength is irrelevant. Resistance is futile. We wish to improve ourselves. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service ours.”

Is this Redfin speaking to the Traditional Realtor model, or vice versa?

We have never taken down a comment that I know of David. And we are paying Tim in part up front, in part based on performance, though nowhere near the amount you suggested. Not that he isn’t worth it, but we can’t afford it.

We suggest you post solicitations for attorneys on Craigslist, which is after all an open marketplace for such services, but we will not delete them from Redfin Forums. We think we offer more guidance throughout the process than simply writing a purchase & sale agreement, but some people don’t want that level of service.

@Steve: touche! I love Star Trek quotes of any kind.

We bought with Redfin and could not have been happier. We like the company enough that I continue to have this blog in my news feed, even though I never ever ever want to buy a house again.

However, this seems like you’re edging closer to a traditional broker. I think if we’d seen this fee structure we’d have found a good real estate attorney and had them do our deal for a flat structure rather than going through Redfin. We’d have had less hand-holding, but there’s something about going back to unlimited visits that turns the feel of this into a discount broker vibe rather than another way of doing business.

hey man i love your site.. your friend michael told me you were looking for a new way to earn some extra income online.

i own an awesome website where you can make money online..most our users are making like 20-50 bucks a day.. with minimal work.. its pretty simple to do.. its actually so easy to do you won’t believe ill actually pay you to do it.. and its 100% free to sign up and try.

another positive about my site unlike all the other sites.. i will pay you out daily.. so you earn 5 bucks in the first 5 minutes you work on my site.. request a payout and i will pay you out right then.. i guarantee no other sites like mine will pay out daily multiple times..

i’d be glad to help you.. if you sign up..
http://tinyurl.com/5htokc

Hi Dan,
I know what you mean about unlimited tours, and I won’t repeat what we argued above, but at the end of the day we just couldn’t understand how being pro-consumer or even online-focused precluded us from offering tours. We aren’t trying to offer the same service but at a lower price as a discounter would; we’re trying to offer a fundamentally better service at a lower price. What makes us better is how we share information throughout the process, increasingly through the use of online tools. What makes us less expensive is primarily that we don’t have a salesforce. We obtain clients exclusively through our website.

Did you study ziprealty’s model to figure out your latest evolution? Maybe you should to figure out your next move because you’re repeating history. Not that ziprealty has it right, but what you’re doing is not unique and has been tried.

Nathan, we respect Zip for having built a $100M real estate business. But we think the difference between Zip and Redfin isn’t whether we offer tours or not, but in how we treat our clients. Zip employs a sales-force to solicit everyone who uses their site to become a client. It draws people to its site through advertising. Its agents are paid in part on commission. Zip may in some ways be more efficient but it isn’t different from other brokers in terms of how it treats it clients.

Redfin aspires to be different because our agents aren’t sales-people, and do not spend any time soliciting clients. Clients get the space to come to us when they’re ready. Aside from an NPR sponsorship in Boston that didn’t work out, we do not run ads of any kind. We spend our money on R&D, not on sales & marketing. We seek to aggressively publish data on our site that anyone can freely access, so clients can become more empowered and self-sufficient. Our agents earn a bonus that varies depending on how happy the client is, not how much he pays.

Hello Glenn,

Got it. Those are material differences between how Redfin and ziprealty end up working with clients. However, in the end, it’s the clients who choose to work with a ziprealty agent, a cb agent or a redfin agent and not the other way around. The clients are choosing based on their comfort level with the person at the other end of the phone, email, text, blog, etc…That’s not unique to ziprealty, redfin or any other company…

Clients typically are most satisfied when they get the best representation from their agent which is a combination of real estate expertise, negotitation skills, responsiveness and listening to their needs. If you can demonstrate that redfin’s agents are on average superior to the rest of the industry in these areas then you’re onto something. Otherwise, your model is a different spin on lead generation and conversion and that’s not neccessarily better than what’s out there.

Nathan

[...] we launched the big upgrade to our home-buying service, with unlimited home tours, agent choice and a higher price, we figured offer volumes would [...]

[...] to Wes, Sylvia and Marc for giving the post a going-over, and to a loyal blog reader — why can’t I find his comment? — for asking why startups are so conservative, [...]

Your San Diego agent has NOT returned my email requests. You are about to lose me as a potential customer.
Stephen McCamman
San Diego, Ca.

Hi Stephen, we’ll get right on it. I just sent you a note with my telephone number so you can contact me directly.
Regards, Glenn

Glenn Kelman, Redfin CEO

Service; you got it. Honesty, transparency, and lots of good information. That is what I feel I have been getting with Redfin and Trevor. We started working with him about a month ago and I have been really pleased. He has shared information I NEVER EVER got from real estate agents from the past 3 houses I bought.
I don’t mind that the fee is 50% and I will gladly pay it. My chief complaint with past houses I purchased is that my so-called “buyer’s agents” were’t much of a buyer’s agent because they didn’t do anything to help me get the lowest price (yet fair and resonable) for the house. Yet I still paid those agents a 3% commission. And for what? Filling out a buy-sell aggreement; big deal.
When I buy a house, I want to know what the real, fair market value is on it. I don’t care about the so-called comps the seller’s agent put together to justify the asking price (give me a break). With Redfin I feel like I have access to real information (not just data) and that my agent (Trevor) is working with me to find the right house at the right price. I don’t mind paying for something if I feel like I’m actually getting something. I feel that with Redfin and Trevor I get the excellent customer service Glenn mentions. Those of you that are whining that Redfin’s changes somehow make them the same as everything else out there, well…I am not sure what it is you are looking for. To me they are very, very different to anything I’ve seen or experienced; honest, transparent, and forthcoming with loads of information.

i agree with the comment regarding the faulty “birdseye” view… a very important feature, so, FIX IT QUICK.

Good post on a company that is willing to keep the tranformational process going. Companies need to be more like organisms and less like traditional organizations.

Glenn, I would like to talk to you about your approach of branding and marketing. The best domain name is a name that explain what you do. I feel that with the right name and approach Redfin can redefine real estate for EVERYONE! Please feel free to e-mail me. I have thoughts of contacting a BLUECHIP real estate company about this platform but would like to talk to you first!

Have eagerly followed your company and would suggest you integrate an old guys’ thinking into your etherial web based world. The preponderance of the active clients in any market, particularily given the dismal economic malaise that appears to be pandemic, are in a word… mature.

You might consider a devolutionary drft slightly to the center.

While the certitude you bring to the table is admirable, unless results are forthcoming being right doesn’t mean a great deal.

My position is: well done is better than well said. A bit adamantine perhaps but sound if profit is the motive.

I can help.

Jim Young

[...] month –  but how we have had to improve as a company: speeding up the website, hosting more tours and offering more agent [...]

thanks for the link back. yes glen you can afford it. pay the guy.

yes i did leave out the part about the glen guy trying to insinuate a relationship with expedia, along with my personal belief that it was an exuberant remark. in my opinion any one who promotes the idea expedia is good for the consumer is a spokes person. i just shortened that rant into calling glen a spokes person.

i came here by way of http://www.seattlebubble.com you owe the tim guy a whole bunch of money for getting people here.
if it weren’t for him i would have never looked.

Oh yea, as an aside, you most certainly did delete my original comment. Lies no matter how loudly they are shouted will never be a truth.

Pay the Tim guy.

[...] does this mean? Well, when we upgraded our own service last November to offer unlimited home tours and a choice of agents, everyone said we were becoming less virtual. And now that we’re connecting consumers with [...]

[...] Kelman wrote in Redfin Corporate Blog: We’re still using technology to change the game, but technology is just a means to an end, not [...]

[...] the reverse of the truth. Redfin has always been quick to admit its many mistakes: hiring too fast, charging too little for representing buyers, charging too much for tours, taking on more clients than we could handle, adopting an overly [...]