Redfin Launches “Meet the Agents”

Over the past few months, we’ve had the opportunity to hear from a lot of our customers both via email and focus groups. One of the most common requests that we get is from customers who want the opportunity to meet our agents in person. While you can talk to one of our incredibly dedicated agents any time just by calling 877-973-3346, we understand the importance of face-to-face communication for many people. Starting this week, we are hosting informal get-togethers in both Seattle and the Bay Area. There’s no formal agenda or presentation. Just a chance to meet a Redfin agent live and in person, connect with other Redfin users, and ask questions about Redfin and the homebuying process. We’ll even provide the snacks!

These events will always happen on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month from 6-7pm and there’s no need to to RSVP. Want to come? Just click here for more info or just come see us!

The Seattle Recruiting Event You Don’t Want to Miss

When we agreed to host last spring’s first Techcrunch here in Seattle, we had no idea that we were satisfying a previously unrecognized need for Puget Sound geeks to get together to talk shop and to show each other their new project, gadget, or site. Now that we’re a few more months into the game and have gotten seemingly unending requests to do an encore (and since it seems like Michael Arrington doesn’t have any immediate plans to return to Seattle), we’ve come up with an event that should give a lot of the same people another good reason to get together again: Startupalooza.

Come join us next Thursday, September 28th to learn about some of the most interesting companies in the web startup business here in Seattle. Even if you aren’t in the market for a job, there should some really interesting folks there and, for those of you that were at TechCrunch, you know we hold true on our promises of good pizza and beer being there as well.

Here’s a list of the 8 companies currently participating in the event:

* Bag, Borrow or Steal
* Blue Dot
* Exbiblio
* Farecast
* Gridnetworks
* Mercent
* Mpire
* Redfin

For more info or to RSVP, please check out our page about the event: www.redfin.com/startupalooza

Changes Afoot on the Redfin Blog

It seems that there’s always more to say about the exciting things going on here at Redfin. We’ve recently taken a long, hard look at the blog (and the amazing number of posts so far) and decided to split it up to make it more valuable for readers.

Starting today, there are now three Redfin blogs. There is the Corporate Blog, which will continue to have great posts that everyone will want to read, such as War Stories, stories about our customers, commentary on the real estate market and real estate technology, and details on our latest exploits. Next are two new local blogs, one for the Bay Area and one for Seattle. These each contain the incredibly popular Sweet Digs posts as well as news on local-area real estate trends and open houses.

The corporate blog will stay at http://blog.redfin.com and now has links to each of the other blogs. If you’d like to bookmark the Seattle blog, you can map to it at: http://blog.redfin.com/blog/seattle/. The Bay Area blog is available at: http://blog.redfin.com/blog/sfbay/

War Story: Sometimes Giving the Seller a Place to Live Seals the Deal

We received another fantastic entry for our War Stories feature this week. This one is from Redfin commited user and longtime booster Peter C. He and his wife were making a big move to the East Coast in 1999 and came up with a creative trade that sealed the deal. Here it is, in his own words:

In 1998, I traveled to the Boston-area from California to find housing for my wife and I during grad school. On the school’s intranet I found a post by a graduating student who wanted to sell her condo/townhome a few blocks away from campus.

I stopped by the house unannounced,introduced myself and discovered over normal chit chat that the seller was coincidentially moving to our neighborhood in California after graduation, but didn’t yet have housing in the uber-competitive bay area housing market.

I asked about buying the Boston condo (it was perfect for us) hoping for an inside-deal, but the seller wisely said that the Boston market was as frothy as California and that she was planning on simply taking the highest price (and she had already engaged an agent) based on offers received the next day. She had had indications that at least 6 offers were forthcoming.

My wife (who was back in California and hadn’t seen the place) and I quickly determined we wanted the condo, but couldn’t afford a bidding war. Therefore, we made an offer and we included a clause that obligated the buyer (us) to provide the seller 4 months free housing at the buyer’s home in California.

The risk we took is that the seller could’ve been an axe-murderer (we didn’t know her at all other than my “drop-by” meeting the day before) or merely obnoxious as a four-month roommate. We also risked paying a few extra months of our California mortgage before selling, but that was far less than what we would’ve needed to increase our bid to win the deal solely on price.

The seller did in fact get 7 offers, most higher than ours, but we won the bid anyway because the seller was worried about her California housing situation and we solved that for her. And a month later we had a random stranger as a roommate for the entire summer.

Thanks Peter for the excellent story and a great lesson for all of us about how important it can be to make sure you take account of all the factors when you make an offer. Sometimes, there are elements even more important than money when you really want to the seal the deal. For his effort, Peter gets dinner at the restaurant of his choice. Do you want us to buy you dinner? Just share your great offer story with us and, if we post it, we’ll give you $50 towards dinner at your favorite place. Just email it to eric.heller (at) redfin.com.

War Story: Karma Wins (Not for the Faint of Heart)

We continue to get great responses from our call for real estate war stories. The following, from Betsy, of West Seattle certainly ranks as the strangest one that we’ve received. While it might be strange, its certainly interesting, and Betsy makes an excellent point about how a good connection with the seller can sometimes be even more important than the final offer price. Take it away Betsy!

It took us two years to find our dream house: enough bedrooms for our family and home office, plus enough yard for my vegetables and my husband Jerry’s dream orchid greenhouse. The house was only on the
market for four days. We visited every day, managing to corner the owner each time and barrage him with questions about the property.

Betsy’s House:

I wrote a lovely letter outlining our hopes for the house and including a picture of our children. When we made a bid, there were eight competing offers. Our agent came back to us and said, “They have two questions for you. One, would you be willing to give them the washer & dryer? And they want you to know that their daughter’s placenta is buried under the apple tree. You just need to know that.”

Jerry and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. We both told our agent: “Our son’s placenta is buried under our fig tree!” Bill grinned and sprinted back to the meeting room. Two seconds later shouts of laughter erupted from the meeting room and he came racing back. “Sign here, sign here, here’s the price, you’ve got the house.”

The sellers sold us the house at $65,000 more than the asking price — but our escalator went up to $87,000 more than the asking price. We could hear the other agent shrieking, “My client will pay more! My
client will pay more!!” (Our strategy was — we had an escalator clause of a very weird number, something like $1,118, and we had a very high (for us) ceiling). The other person was willing to top $487,000, but the seller chose us because of the placenta.

This was a case of absolute karma — the sellers were the kind of people we would have liked to have hung out with. They wanted US to have the house, not because we could pay top dollar, but because we clearly respected the craftsmanship of the house and wanted to treat it with love for the next 30 years.

We’ve been in the house for almost a year and every time I drive up our road, I pray to myself, “Please let our house still be there, please let it still be there.” We love it that much.

Thanks Betsy, for your story and example of how even the obscure can make the difference when it comes to winning the bid on the perfect house. As a thank you, Betsy gets dinner at her favorite restaurant on us. Got a great war story? Send it on to eric (dot) heller (at) redfin (dot) com — we’ll post it up and send you out for dinner as well!

War Story: A Blank Check is a Powerful Argument

We’ve received some great responses from the call we put out last month for real estate offer war stories. One of the first to come in was from Sue M. She originally moved to Seattle as part of a corporate relocation package and, during one of her house hunting visits, found a house that she just had to have at any cost (literally!) Read on and discover the power of persistence and a blank check.

Here Sue’s story, in her own words:
I was at an open house and my realtor could tell that I REALLY wanted the house. So she got the conversation going with the owners. We found out that the current owner and I had run the Chicago Marathon the same year and that she was due to have a baby girl in just two months.
We were to present our offer the next evening as one of 10 offers (!). I told my realtor that I’d rather pay too much for the house than lose it. We debated how far over list price we needed to go to win the bidding war. We decided on a strategy to just go in with a blank check and I went to the store to buy little pink running shoes for the soon-to-be-born baby girl as a sweetener to the deal.
We gave them a signed contract with the amount line left blank and told the sellers to fill in whatever amount it would take to get the house. I was a bit nervous, but my realtor’s lawyer assured us that they couldn’t put in a ridiculous amount without my consent. So we waited at a nearby restaurant for them to review the other offers and let us know the outcome. Oh, and my realtor presented the little pink running shoes to the delight of the soon-to-be-parents.

Here’s a picture of the house:

We got a call at the end of the presentations asking what our offer would be. We offered well above the highest offer, but also well below what I was willing to pay. Thinking we had it wrapped up, we paid the check and walked down to the real estate office. We waited some tense moments in the parking lot, eyeing suspiciously any cars that looked like they might be pulling into the parking lot to steal away “my” house. We got another call saying that the other buyer matched my offer and could I do anything to make the decision easier for them. We threw in another $5k and went back to waiting for the final call.
We got the call that I’d won the bidding war. The strategy of the seller setting the price low to prompt a bidding war seemed to work in my favor–the buyers who could go as high as I could didn’t bother to check out the house because at the list price, in my neighborhood, one would assume the house must be a fixer. And the folks who did look at it evidently couldn’t (or wouldn’t) pay what I did. I’ve been in the house for 3 years and cheer every time I see data that indicates the house has appreciated significantly. I feel very lucky…

Thanks Sue, for your excellent story and lesson on persistence when it comes to finding hidden jewels in this crazy housing market. As a thank you, Sue gets dinner for two at the Dahlia Lounge on us. Got a great war story? Send it on to eric (dot) heller (at) redfin (dot) com — we’ll post it up and send you out for dinner to your favorite restaurant!