At Redfin, we’ve long been opposed to dual agency, where the same agent represents both seller and buyer. This hasn’t always been an easy call because in some ways dual agency is more efficient. But it’s hard to represent both sides in a negotiation simultaneously, and the big problem is that it encourages the listing… Read More
We think Lisa Hurt is the first Redfin seller to promote her home for sale in Bothell with Twitter! While Lisa is new to Twitter it’s exciting to see sellers using different online mechanisms to promote their listings. I definitely think that Twitter, especially if you have a decent number of followers, can be a… 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
After arguing that we should let foreclosures run their course, we saw just what this would look like in a bank-owned Oakland listing, first noticed by one of the Redfin Forums participants. In the listing photos, a man sits in front of the house, seemingly with his head in his hands. In the floor of… Read More
There have been a couple articles circling lately about the value of words in real estate listings. Quick, which of the following words will help sell your home? motivated seller good value clean quiet new paint If you guessed all of the above, keep reading. Bottom line: words matter and none of these will help… Read More
We are experiencing some unseasonably cold weather in Seattle this week. Good for winter sports, bad for driving. During my rally-cross drive home, I caught tonight’s episode of Marketplace on NPR. They had a really entertaining segment about burying a statue of Saint Joseph to speed the sale of your house. Long story short, wherever… Read More
How do you sell a home that isn’t for sale? Today, we’re trying to find out, as the first step in a program called First to Know. The home-for-sale-that-isn’t-for-sale is a Capitol Hill condo here in Seattle. The condo owner, Eugene Lin, wants to gauge market demand. So he took some snaps and wrote up… Read More
At Redfin, we’re always interested in technologies that let you see more about a property in your PJ’s. So we wondered, why aren’t more agents uploading videos to places like YouTube? It’s free, and even when the video itself is kind of cheesy, it’s cool. Check out the video for this Tukwila fixer-upper. And while… Read More