Reality Check for Redfin

It’s an old pleasure getting a package in the mail from a friend, especially when it contains a new book, the pages cracking and smelling of paint and wood.

So it was a nice surprise to get Guy Kawasaki’s Reality Check in yesterday’s mail.  And nicer still to see that Redfin essays on financial models, talking to the press, and startup life (also featured in the New York Times) became their own chapters in the book, now ranked#209 on Amazon.

Thanks Guy, for including us.  It was a wonder you ever took notice of Redfin when we were only a few goofballs working in David Eraker’s apartment. And it’s exciting to appear in a book that gets manufactured by a big machine, and moved around on forklifts and in cargo ships,  and read by people in subways and hammocks and breakfast counters. Almost the fulfillment of a life-long ambition.

Some day, I’m going to see a guy falling asleep on a plane with this book in his lap, and I’ll tell him Hey! pay attention! There’s some good stuff in there…

Our Kind of Town…

Having already begun slogging through months of falling real estate prices, Redfin was a little nervous when we opened Chicago, our first major new market in a year. We couldn’t quite get it launched until mid-summer, and we worried that by late fall it would become a frozen real estate hell.

Not much time for Mark Reitman, Chicago market manager and customer-service manimal, to make headway. But now we’re looking to complete at least eight Chicago transactions in November, which for Redfin, in a new market, in a down economy, during the low season — is a lot. Check out what a client said about Mark today in Redfin’s Forums:

Before I first contacted Redfin I thought that, since the commissions were lower, I could expect to receive a lower level of service.

Boy was I wrong about that.  We closed on our house this month, and nothing could be further from the truth.  I actually got better service and everyone on your Chicago team worked very hard, and responded 7 days a week.  Plus, thanks to your awesome website, we were able to select and tour homes we were actually interested in, and saved a lot of time that used to be wasted driving around in the back of someone else’s car to see a lot of homes we didn’t want.  Then, after providing all of those benefits to us, you also gave us most of your hard earned commission.  Incredible!

I am amazed that you are able to provide such a high level of service at such a low commission.  Redfin appears to be single handedly transforming the badly outdated model that residential real estate has been following forever.  What is your secret?

Way to go Mark, way to go Redfin! And thanks to the customer who posted this message. These things whang off the walls at Redfin, and make everyone try a little harder.

(Bonus link: a remarkable essay on why bailout money should go to community banks…)

UPDATE: many thanks to Greg Whelan and Patrick Lusk for being the folks who as much as anyone really made this deal happen, and to Mark for being so generous in sharing the credit.