June 3, 2008
Update as of June 6: Sandicor has fixed its data feed, and as of a few minutes ago all San Diego MLS listings are up-to-date on Redfin.com. Should listing data issues in any market come up in the future, we’ll hold to the commitment outlined below. Thanks for your patience!
Some of you may have noticed that San Diego listings on Redfin.com haven’t been updated over the weekend. Sandicor, the San Diego area MLS, has been having some issues that mean it can’t export listing data to MLS-powered websites like ours.
We’ve talked to the folks over at Sandicor and they’re working hard to resolve the issues. They run a tight ship, so we’re confident the data will be moving again soon.
San Diego listing data highway: temporarily closed.
It bothers us whenever the data on our site isn’t as fresh as possible. We’re a member-broker of the MLSs in each of our markets so that we can get the most accurate and up-to-date listings on Redfin.com. We update our site with new data from most of the MLS databases every 15 minutes.
But sometimes problems come up. You should know what you’re getting on Redfin.com, so here’s what you can expect:
We’ll update listings on Redfin.com every 24 hours, or sooner.
This applies to our MLS listings, as well as foreclosure and for-sale-by-owner (FSBO) listings. An update means the latest data from our listing data providers is on Redfin.com. For sources of data that change less often, like tax records and school information, you can expect the data to be updated less frequently.
When we can’t, we’ll tell you why.
Whenever our listing data is more than 24 hours old, we’ll post a note in the forums for each market that’s affected, explaining the issue and giving you some idea of when it will be resolved.
And then we’ll fix the problem ASAP.
If the problem is on our side, you can rest assured that we’ll attack it like rabid dogs until it’s fixed. On weekends, we may be slower to discover problems with our data, since our developers personally monitor the data feeds and they occasionally, but only occasionally, take part in non-development related activities - i.e. “personal life.” If it’s our partners who are having trouble, we’ll give them whatever help they need.
We simply want to build the best real estate website in the world, and as part of that we’re making this public commitment on our listing data. Comments are, as always, welcome.
Photocredit: sillygwailo on Flickr.
May 30, 2008
At one of our monthly Sweet Digs calls a blogger from Boston suggested there be a way for the team to collaborate on posting ideas and share documents. Fair enough.
But then why is it that simple projects like this cause us to sweat a little? Maybe it’s the pioneering startup spirit in all of us that drives us to build everything from scratch. The first questions that ran through my mind were how much developer time would it take to build this page and how much would it cost. Then reality sets in: let’s find a turnkey solution but not one that fits a 1,000 person operation with prohibitive licensing fees. We didn’t need Lotus Notes.
This is what we were looking for in a wiki:
- Set up should be painless and quick
- Support for 25-50 users, and privacy
- Page editing that a grandma can figure out
The final requirement was crucial for us. We liked the WYSIWYG editor in Wetpaint’s wiki and had some prior experience using it to build an invite page for a press party last year. It was also heartening to know our ragtag band of neighborhood bloggers had joined a network that included groups dedicated to saving hedgehogs, memorializing LOLspeak and exploring the anatomy.
Our Sweet Digs wiki page contains a blog team directory, a schedule for conference calls and pages for downloading documents and sharing WordPress shortcuts among other features. The team is already putting it to use: one blogger shared a plugin that makes it easier to create an SEO-friendly blog title for the post URL, yet have an alternate and more interesting published title. It took less than a day’s work to set up and it was free. Much thanks to Seattle Sweet Digs blogger Katrina Munsell for her help in making it look sweet!
May 28, 2008
The two most dreaded words in real estate today must be “low” and “baller.”
So publishing a how-to guide for lowballers is a little like hanging a kick-me sign around our neck. We’re the ones who have to make deals happen, even when our client is convinced a house in Palo Alto is overpriced by 15%.
Yes, we know that especially in outlying areas the market stinks. But so does the seller, who priced his house in the first place. And the likelihood that he’ll lop another 5% or 10% off his asking price isn’t just determined by the house’s “intrinsic value” or its “fundamentals.”
It’s also a matter of the seller’s state of mind, which can drive him to stick to a high price, or to drop an already-fair price. So as brokers, we don’t just look at the cards on the table but also at the people playing them, searching for “tells” that the seller is ready to cut a deal.
Now as part of our Agent-Off-the-Record series, where our agents get together to assemble a greatest-hits list of insider advice on a topic, we’re outlining what we think are the six major signals and eleven minor signs that a seller is motivated to negotiate.
To get a significant discount, of say more than five percent from list price, we would typically expect to see at least two major signals or one major signal and two minor signs.
For example, just because a seller is going through a divorce doesn’t mean he’ll sell his house at a 10% discount. But if the place has also been on the market for a few months, or it’s in a neighborhood with a big inventory pileup, he might consider it.
So these signals say nothing about whether a property is fairly priced, only about what the seller is willing to accept now.
The Seven Major Signals
- The seller must move: the seller’s agent occasionally posts a message in the MLS that the seller is motivated. Bingo!
- The home’s previous sale price was much lower: the seller may accept a discount if he can still come out ahead. On the other hand, few sellers will accept less than what they owe on the mortgage, unless they’re already in default.
- The home has been on the market 90 days without a price change: Redfin displays days on market for each listing.
- The neighborhood has many homes languishing on the market: use the listing statistics below Redfin’s map to see if the neighborhood’s listings average 90+ days on market.
- The property is vacant: the seller’s probably paying two mortgages.
- The owners are getting a divorce: look in the property tax records for recent title transfers.
- The property is the first or last home in a development: new-home prices are difficult to negotiate, but extras and closing costs aren’t. Builders are anxious to sell the first home for marketing buzz and the last so they can move on.
The Ten Minor Signs
- The home is staged: staging can costs hundreds every week. It increases the listing’s appeal but also increases the seller’s motivation to sell. (We argued about this one, as some Redfin agents see it as a sign of strength)
- The property has been re-listed: when a property is relisted, Redfin.com resets days on market. But your agent can query the MLS directly for the listing’s entire history.
- The seller is offering special incentives to buyer’s agents: tell a seller to keep the incentives in lieu of a lower price.
- The listing is a short sale: to avert foreclosure, the seller will take almost any price, but the trick is getting bank approval prior to foreclosure.
- A bank is selling a foreclosed property: banks don’t like owning homes, and are often eager to sell.
- The property is an estate sale: relatives may not want to hold out for top dollar.
- There are many foreclosures in the area: even if the listing isn’t a foreclosure, it competes for buyers with nearby foreclosures.
- The property is the most expensive in the neighborhood: an expensive home built on inexpensive land can easily be overpriced. Sellers value the wine cellar more than you will.
- The property is unique: sellers become emotionally attached to unique properties, which are difficult to price, and difficult to sell. But if the home is one of many in the same development, the seller’s agent is usually more confident about the asking price. And if the home is part of a new development, the builder will hesitate to set a low precedent for future sales.
- A contingent sale fails, or stalls for more than 45 days: after a competing buyer has rejected or delayed a deal because of financing or inspection contingencies, the seller may eagerly accept cash on the barrel, even at a lower price. Use listing alerts to track contingent property sales.
Our parting advice is to remember what Time-Warner’s CEO, Richard Parsons, says about any successful negotiation: that both parties have to feel like they won something. But who wants to hear such sage advice when the market’s going nuts? Tell us what’s worked for you. Once we’ve incorporated your suggestions, we’ll publish a final version to our main site, and link back to here.
May 27, 2008
In September 2005, just as Redfin was raising its first round of funding, the Department of Justice sued the National Association of Realtors for developing a policy that allowed its members to share listing information with some brokers but not others.
The policy was suspended while the lawsuit lumbered through federal court. And in the interim, Redfin was able to cite the lawsuit in convincing investors that we could compete straight up, broker to broker, without losing access to all the listing data controlled by other brokers.
And it’s still why Redfin, alone among the major new websites, has had all the broker-listed homes for sale: we’ve been able to become members of the Multiple Listing Services (MLSs) that Realtors use to share data, and have made our peace with its other rules.
But plenty of folks wondered what would happen to Redfin when the NAR suit settled. We wondered too. Well, today the suit settled. When I first read the NAR press release, I suddenly remembered what Billy told his platoon of mercenaries at the beginning of “Predator”: “We’re all gonna die.”
The National Association of Realtors proclaimed a stunning victory, first because it didn’t have to admit to any wrongdoing, though this is a standard feature of many settlement agreements; and second because the NAR also said that it didn’t h
ave to pay any money, though this is hardly what the Department of Justice was after.
Greg Swann at Bloodhound, quoting Hamlet Macbeth, rightly said so what.
But the proposed settlement agreement did result in a major change, the permanent repeal of the Internet Listings Display policy that would have allowed brokers to selectively withhold listing data.
So for the consumer (and for Redfin too), the settlement is good news: an MLS can’t discriminate against Redfin or any other broker because of our business model or our technology. Any information that can be whispered by a real estate agent to his client — such as how long a home has been on the market, or how its price has changed over time — can be distributed by Redfin through its site. Hooray!
But the NAR wasn’t about to set the data free willy-nilly, especially when its member Realtors are accountable to home-sellers who want to see their homes marketed, not discussed or criticized. For one thing, the DoJ protections only apply if we ask site visitors to register, which turns off about 90% of the people who visit a real estate site (how would Google have grown if it required registration to search?).
Beyond that the NAR claims that “the new policy protects sellers from having false or other unwanted information about their listings appear” on sites like ours. We wondered what that meant. According to the exhibits in the settlement agreement, a seller can opt out of:
“1. allow[ing] third-parties to write comments or reviews about particular listings or displays a hyperlink to such comments or reviews in immediate conjunction with particular istings, or
2. display[ing] an automated estimate of the market value of the listing (or hyperlink to such estimate) in immediate conjunction with the listing.”
The automated estimate mentioned in the exhibits is exactly what we’ve integrated from Zillow, eppraisal and Cyberhomes. And the online discussions are something we’ve tried to host before, too. We suspect that some brokers will include such prohibitions in their standard listing agreements, so that many sellers will opt out.
Ultimately, we think that ducking a conversation like this is just sticking our heads in the sand. We can understand why the NAR took the position it did, but in the final analysis it marginalizes Realtors, and limits our ability to connect buyers and sellers.
People will talk about homes online, and they’d rather do it on brokers’ sites, where all the listings are available. But if they can’t talk here, they’ll go somewhere else.
So all in all, we were glad to see that the settlement protected all brokers’ access to data. We just want to make sure we can still do something meaningful with the data, too.
Bonus link: The NYT gets snarky about Paris Hilton, AGAIN…
May 23, 2008
My friend Geordie is a high-end real estate junkie. He cruises hot neighborhoods for open houses, even when he travels. He goes to every luxury condo party, and even picks up a few units here and there. When I joined Redfin he was ecstatic. Now he’d have someone to talk shop with. So, every time I walk into his house I get peppered with questions … how’s the Fin (his pet name for Redfin)? Anyone buying really expensive houses with Redfin yet - where, who, how much, what was the commission refund? 
When we started this crazy venture to change the real estate industry we were so excited just to get an offer (we actually rang a bell for each close. I hear Amazon used to do the same thing, copycats!?), now we’re working on multimillion-dollar deals. We just closed three multimillion-dollar transactions in April, including one house worth more than $7 million!
“For a higher-priced home, Redfin provided outstanding value compared to what we would have paid a traditional broker for the same service,” said Redfin homebuyer Tina Dur (pictured with her adorable family).
This might sound like peanuts to some brokerages, but it’s an historic first for Redfin and shows how far we’ve come. We’re crossing the chasm from early adopter Seattle tech-geeks to new markets and customers. April’s three multimillion-dollar deals were in California and 33 percent of Redfin buyers work in high technology, a decrease from 48 percent last year.
We won’t turn this into an Oscars’ speech, but, Geordie, this one’s for you. We also couldn’t do it without the improved relationships with the agents listing high-end homes, and our more than 75 customers who have bought $1 million-plus homes via Redfin, who received an average of $26,265, tax free.
The moral (sorry for sounding like Aesop, but I just read The Alchemist and I’ve been looking for omens and morals everywhere) is that high-end homebuyers are just like you and me. We know what we want – all the information, to be respected and an honest value; all core Redfin values, which is why we think we’re seeing more people buying very nice houses. But at the end of the day, we still give customers the same rockstar service whether spending $300,000 or $3 million.
Now another local big shot company is copying our idea! Did you see that Microsoft is giving commission refunds to customers who buy via their search site? And we thought we were changing just the way real estate is done.
Bonus link: Looking for a design coder? The SEO Rapper knows his stuff - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0qMe7Z3EYg
May 22, 2008
The inevitable blog post about a blogger’s feelings on blogging doesn’t do much for me. The confessional tone is often only a more devious ploy for attention, and the solipsism of the post is an uncomfortable reminder of the solipsism of the form, with everyone talking to ourselves, while hardly anyone listens.
So why, when I felt so busy this morning, couldn’t I stop reading the New York Times Magazine’s ten-page essay from a former Gawker blogger about blogging, written by Emily Gould? At first it was the picture of the author sleeping beside her laptop. Then it was this one beautiful sentence: she wrote after a breakup that she felt like “the last living speaker of some dying language.”
And finally it was that she seemed like the most unlikely person in the world to explain what every blogger sooner or later learns: that communication without the possibility of privacy is hardly communication at all (whenever someone I’ve met for a hot chocolate asks “How are you? I mean, really?” I first try to remember if he has a blog), that your voice really does sound that way on the answering machine, that the accumulation of hastily written (and sometimes not-so-hastily-written), calculating, heartfelt, boring, argumentative, funny posts might be who you really are, less likable than you’d hoped, irrevocably given away to strangers.
Reading the essay’s description of people blogging morning, noon and night, it was hard not to think of Adam Gopnik’s description of Shakespeare characters as “compulsion machines, capable of charm.”
The comments are also good: “Turn off the computer, drive to Coney Island and jump in the ocean. Cleanse yourself and start all over again. You won’t be missing a thing.” And: “Will the cure for cancer get this many pages [in the paper]?” And: “At first, I thought I was reading the sophomore page of the student newspaper at Harding High in Yokelville, Ohio. Then I realized that it was the New York Times. Just awful.” Reading a perfect snark like that, I still bounce up and down with excitement, which is exactly what Emily was arguing against.
Sometimes I feel like God first created people, and then the Internet, so that after we’re gone, there will still be an elaborate record — perhaps even a blueprint for our re-creation, like a self-replicating piece of DNA — of our contradictions, our multitudes.
May 20, 2008
Home-buyers may spend as much money on their real estate agent as on their car, but many will choose their agent in less than an hour. According to a California Association of Realtors report, nearly half of all home-buyers hire the first agent they meet.
This is probably because most of us would rather reject a car than a person. And some people just don’t know what to ask when evaluating an agent.As agents ourselves, we know what we’d ask. We went around the office to make a top-ten list and are now soliciting your suggestions on all the questions we avoided, rigged or just overlooked.
We’ll incorporate your comments to create a permanent page on our site, and link back to here so everyone can see the discussion.
Our top-ten list actually has fifteen questions:
1. Is this your full-time gig? How many clients have you served this year?
An active agent is more likely to be up-to-date on the market and the law.
2. How many sales have you handled in my target neighborhoods?
You want someone who knows the local market, with a few recent deals in your target neighborhoods.
3. When clients are unhappy with your service, what has gone wrong?
Asking why a client has been a bad fit for an agent can help you figure out if you’re a good fit.
4. Has a client ever filed a complaint against you?
If you’re uncomfortable asking, just check with the state licensing board.
5. What’s your fee?
The seller pays the buyer’s agent using the money you pay for the house, typically 3% of the sales price. Some buyer’s agents refund part of this fee.
6. What services do you offer beyond negotiations and escrow?
Make a list of what you’ll be paying for. Negotiations, paperwork and contingencies are the minimum.
7. When am I committed to working with you?
Many consumers start touring homes without realizing this can obligate them to work with the agent, contract or no contract.
8. How many foreclosure or short-sale transactions have you handled?
Distressed properties can be great deals, but the paperwork is complicated, and your liability is greater. The best agents have experience closing deals with banks.
9. Who else will be working with me?
An agent is often supported by a team. But the person you hire should do most of the work.
10. Will you show me all the properties for sale?
Good agents show all properties, even for-sale-by-owner properties that don’t pay a commission.
11. How quickly can you get me into a home?
Hot homes move fast. Ask how the agent handles tours on short notice.
12. Do you represent buyers and sellers on the same house?
No agent can fairly represent both. You need someone on your side.
13. What sets you apart from other agents?
Look for expertise, not just eagerness. You aren’t hiring the neighborhood kid to rake your leaves.
14. What if I’m unhappy with your service?
Agents get paid when you buy a house. But most customer complaints occur during the closing process. Ask for a guarantee.
15. Can I get references for your last five deals?
Every agent has clients he served well. But the best agents serve nearly all of their clients well. Getting an agent’s last five clients will give you a more balanced picture of his service than letting him choose his most favorable references. Call at least two of the five, asking clients some of the same questions you asked him. Look closely at these last five deals to see how they compare to similar sales in the neighborhood. Did he negotiate a good price for each customer?
So that’s our list. But let’s have all the DIY consumer mavens and Internet-savvy brokers who read our blog give the list a once-over so we can see what we missed.
And please check back next week for the questions every home-seller should ask their agent.
Photo credit: cambodia4kidsorg on Flickr.
May 16, 2008
A few months back, we released a new version of the site that let our customers download listing stats and past sales data to a spreadsheet. Then last Tuesday night, we began to require registration on Redfin’s site before allowing customers to download results from the map. People typically use this data when they’re doing a Comparative Market Analysis or CMA.
We made the change because a few of the MLSs to which we belong have requested that don’t allow indiscriminate access to listing data. As one MLS has already pointed out, this will help protect home-sellers from being snail-mail spammed by movers. It’s a way to balance buyers’ hunger for information with sellers’ privacy.
And no, we’re not complaining about the MLS. As we observed this week in the New York Times, MLSs are getting more and more Internet-friendly all the time. We know how hard it is for them to set up rules that all the brokers can abide by when sharing their data, and we like belonging to the MLS. Being able to show all the homes for sale is much better for us than trying to build our own partial database, which is what the non-brokers have to do.
Here’s an example of the data you can download once you’re logged in:
Several Redfin users have noticed the change. One asked us the question:
I can’t seem to see/find the download button when pulling data for homes that have sold, to build comparisons.
What am I missing?
Thanks,
ZK
ZK, you’re not missing anything, but now you need to register and log in to see the data. If you register, we won’t spam you, sell or rent your email address, or otherwise do nefarious things. And of course you get to use all kinds of cool site features like email updates on your search, RSS feeds, and the ability to tell the difference between homes for which you’ve viewed details (lighter colors) and those for which you haven’t (darker).
We think registration for download is a good thing: serious buyers still get the data that helps them make a sound offer, as well as other benefits. And sellers don’t get spammed.
May 5, 2008
While in general we believe that more information is better, we recently learned how the information on our website can be used for indecorous purposes. The winner of DC Metrocentric’s most recent PriceChecker competition used Redfin to look up the price of a DC condo, rather than make a guess. DC Metrocentric is a blog about housing and development in and around Washington, DC. We’re fans of their PriceChecker series in which they profile a property and ask readers to guess the price. After a few days, they reveal the listing price and a winner based on the closest guess. The property profiles are great, especially if the property has an animal skin rug.
The winner of the latest PriceChecker found the list price on Redfin. In the comments, Roy, the winner, admits he used Redfin to get the price. Fransie wants Roy’s “PriceChecker Crown revoked.” Clearly the commenters are having fun with this. While we’re glad that Roy uses Redfin and was able to find the property, we hope this doesn’t lead to the downfall of the PriceChecker series. What do you think? Cheating or smart research?
Photo credit: laffy4k on Flickr.
May 5, 2008
Everyone is dancing on Yahoo’s grave this morning, after Wall Street punished the company for rejecting Microsoft’s merger offer. But perhaps because I came of age when Yahoo! celebrated everything fun and weird about the Internet, or because it’s good to see a nerdy founder replace a bigshot media executive, or because Yahoo is an underdog, I smiled when I read the news. Already people have forgotten how perilous getting bought by Microsoft would have been for Yahoo. Yahoo has hemorrhaged talent, been rightly strung up for its cooperation with repressive governments — not that Yahoo was the only one — and its executives can’t stop selling out the company to the press, but the Silicon Valley I know should be celebrating Yahoo’s pluck. It isn’t easy competing against Google, and it’s unclear that Microsoft would have made it any easier.
