Seattle Housing Buzz

Redfin announced yesterday that they’ve overhauled their listing program throughout their service areas.

 

Redfin agents will now offer in-home listing consultations, provide pre-listing recommendations, host open houses & private tours, post a personalized agent “for sale” sign, print flyers, aggregate listings on 3rd-party websites and implement on online system for agent feedback. Essentially, Redfin services have been revamped to match those offered by traditional full-service companies.

 

As a result of the expanded services, Redfin has modified its fee structure. The new listing fee is 1.5% (4.5% when factoring in a 3% buyer agent commission) with a minimum of $5,500. Previously, they charged either $5,000 or $7,000 depending on the level of service provided.

 

I think this is a positive move on Redfin’s part. Though, as the scrappy upstart matures and grows, expanding its services and market areas (they just launched in Phoenix), they are seemingly morphing more and more into a traditional discount real estate company. On a cost side, Redfin’s fee is lower than what most brokerages charge. However, as fees are negotiable their advantage is less apparent than before since many full-service agents list for less than the norm as well. Redfin’s superior technology and customer feedback/reviews sets them apart, yet as other companies begin to follow suit, the lines of differentiation are becoming blurred.

Tags: Redfin

So you’re out about town looking at homes, or not, and you come across a house for sale that strikes your interest. You like to know more about it, like the price and how many bedrooms it has and maybe view a few photos, but darn it, the flyer box is empty and you really don’t want to call the listing agent. If you’re like most, you jot down the address or listing number and wait till you’re home to check out the listing online.

Or, you can pull out your web-enabled mobile phone to view the listing online right there and then.

I looked at websites of technologically forward real estate companies in Seattle to compare the ease of conducting a property search (depth and ease of locating the address and MLS# search options) and the display of the information including viewable sized photos as well as the number of pages and clicks that are needed to view the property information. Here’s my unscientific test results using my Treo 755 w/Palm OS, ranked from worst to best.

6. Redfin

Redfin’s site is not optimized for mobile browsing and viewing the website on my phone shows an awkwardly chopped-up display in order to be viewable in a mobile browser. I made several attempts to search for listings but kept getting an error stating the page was too large to display, then a JavaScript error. Redfin’s site was the only one to return a JavaScript error. If I’m on the road I’m not going to mess with trying to view listing info on Redfin.

After loading the necessary JavaScript, it didn’t help much. The maps didn’t load and I got other errors indicating data could not be displayed. Though, I did come across a comment from one of their program managers on the Redfin forum indicating a mobile version is in the works.

Verdict: Ranks last since I couldn’t successfully conduct a property search on my phone, however results may be different with other mobile operating systems and/or browsers.

5. Re/Max

The Re/Max site had the most limited search features which made it more difficult to narrow down to a specific property, but it did include an MLS# search that was just one click from the home page. An address search option is available but was four convoluted clicks away.

And, like the other company websites, it had a very chopped-up display. However, once you got past all that and viewed the actual listing info, they provided all of the listing details on a single page. This is great since you don’t need to wait for additional pages to resolve. But, I was only able to view one photo; clicking on the next photo button didn’t do anything but reload the page.

Verdict: Probably the best display of listing information, but it requires a convoluted four clicks to access the address search feature and trouble viewing photos.

4. Coldwell Banker Bain

CB Bain does not offer a mobile version, either, and their website is displayed in a chopped-up format. Their pages are large which takes quite a bit of time to fully download, plus I also received a page too large to display error.

The site offered an MLS# search on the home page with the address search feature two clicks away, which is a bit much considering how long it takes for each page to display. The initial listing page provided basic info and required one additional click to get detailed info and viewable sized photos. However, once the pages resolved, it was pretty easy to read and navigate through. The address search was a bit awkward with the city field showing up in between the house number and street fields.

Verdict: It simply took far too long to access and download the listing information.

3. John L. Scott

As with all of the sites above, the John L. Scott website is not mobile optimized, formats the site awkwardly and is slow to resolve. It offers a couple of search options on the home page including an MLS # search, but the address search was two clicks away.

The initial listing page provided basic property information and a single photo. Though, additional information and thumbnails were another click away. Unfortunately, I was not able to view the other images in a decent viewable size.

Verdict: Results were similar to CB Bain (developed by the same tech firm) with the lack of viewing other photos offset by a faster download time.

2. Windermere

Windermere does not offer a mobile optimized website and the site displayed in the choppy format as well.

Fortunately, the Windermere site provides an address and MLS# search option on the home page, which made it very simple and considerably faster to access the listing information. However, detailed info and photos were on multiple pages requiring additional clicks and wait time. The listing page shows one viewable photo with a link to the photo gallery that only display thumbnails.

Verdict: Windermere offers the most accessible search feature for non-mobile site, but viewing listing information necessitated navigating multiple pages and only had thumbnail photos.

1. John L. Scott Mobile

John L. Scott is the only company to offer a mobile optimized website which can be accessed at m.johnlscott.com.

The site is basic, just a home search application that’s stripped of unnecessary options which makes loading and navigation faster and more user friendly. The home page defaults to an MLS# or John L. Scott property code search option with an address search option one click away.

If you have the MLS#, the mobile application displays all of the listing information on a one page with a single photo. Unfortunately, the site does not provide additional photos.

If you enter an address, the application returns all of the listings at that address (e.g. condos) as well as all available properties within a 1-mile radius. This is a great feature when you’re out looking at properties and you want to see what’s available near the one you’re at.

Verdict: The only mobile-optimized site, so by default, ranks first. Though, the experience is diminished by the omission of viewing multiple photos.

Tags: , CB Bain, Coldwell Banker, John L Scott, mobile website, Redfin, Remax, Windermere

Ok, so I’ll weigh in here. Redfin recently announced their updated buyer-side performance statistics. Redfin agents, they say, beat other companies by negotiating 1.015% off the list price compared to .087%. Locally, Redfin states they’re able to negotiate more off the sales price for their buyers compared to all other agents, 98.89% to 99.38%. And, when combined with buyer rebates, they save their buyers $12,262 on average. This amounts to 2.45%…what they call the Redfin Advantage. Very commendable, indeed.

So, how did my buyers fare? Would they have done better with Redfin?

Over the same period, on average, I negotiated 2.76% off the list price saving my buyers $15,666 off the top. This figure does not include subsequent seller concessions such as seller paid closing costs (not wrapped into the sales price) and credit for repairs and so forth, which amounted to an additional $3,833, on average.

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Redfin buyers save on average: $12,262 which include the buyers rebate.

Ben’s buyers save on average: $19,499.

Tags: Buyers Agent, Redfin, Seattle Real Estate

I thought this was an amusing little tidbit of real estate news. While conducting a home search real estate agent Beau Betts noticed that Deborah Arends, the antagonist on 60 Minutes’ Redfin piece, took over a property that was previously listed with Redfin for nearly 100 days. Sometimes experience and service do matter.

Tags: Redfin

Inman News, a real estate media site, recently spotlighted a series feature several innovative Seattle-based real estate related companies at InmanTV.com. The interviews were conducte at Zillow’s office by Joel Burslem and provides some interesting insights.

Click on the links below to view the interviews:
Zillow

Redfin

John L. Scott

Estately

Tags: Inman, John L Scott, Redfin, Zillow