What Zillow doesn't want you to know about its listing gap • Hacker News Board

Re: What Zillow doesn't want you to know about its listing gap

#141

Post by conorh » Wed, Oct 07, 2015, 2:14 AM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #95

encoderer wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Otoh, are the very best agents going to work for rf and make less money? Redfin looks like modern KW to me. Most great agents don't want to undersell their own industry. And while there are many markets where a mediocre agent will do, I wouldn't take that chance in sf, la, Nyc, Miami, etc

Can you define what you mean with best agents? My experience from NY is that they are all mostly using Street Easy and getting a fee for something I have already found myself. And I don't live cheap.

Ex StreetEasy dev here (from a long time back). Is this buying or renting? If it is renting then I would agree with you, the market is so commoditized in NYC for renting that the current broker structure doesn't make sense.

Re: What Zillow doesn't want you to know about its listing gap

#142

Post by ThomPete » Wed, Oct 07, 2015, 2:24 AM UTC

conorh wrote: post #141

ThomPete wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you define what you mean with best agents? My experience from NY is that they are all mostly using Street Easy and getting a fee for something I have already found myself. And I don't live cheap.

Ex StreetEasy dev here (from a long time back). Is this buying or renting? If it is renting then I would agree with you, the market is so commoditized in NYC for renting that the current broker structure doesn't make sense.

For renting yes, buying is different I know. But I can still find many places myself and don't need an agent for that.

The best agents are really "only" good because they know of the good apartments it's not that the actual broker part itself requires some sort of special skills.

There is a reason why everyone who has the funds turn to buying real-estate.

Re: What Zillow doesn't want you to know about its listing gap

#143

Post by URSpider94 » Wed, Oct 07, 2015, 2:24 AM UTC

aggieben wrote: post #139

JamesBarney wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I'm usually against certification, I don't think one weeks worth of studying and a $300 fee is a huge barrier to entry to be able to oversee a $300,000 transactions and have unrestricted access to 70% of houses on the market. I don't think the market would change much if this barrier was removed. The median realtor is only $38,000 a year.

$300 fee? No, my friend. If you buy something on MLS, you pay at least half of a 6% commission on that $300k, for a cool $18,000 (if you have an easygoing seller, that is) How's that for a barrier to entry? And yah - the market would revolutionize overnight* because without professional licensing suddenly MLS becomes just one of many sources of data - and judging by the technology of MLS, a quickly irrelevant one. *…

He's referring to the cost to become licensed as a professional Realtor, at which point you can sell your own home.

Re: What Zillow doesn't want you to know about its listing gap

#144

Post by SteveGerencser » Wed, Oct 07, 2015, 2:25 AM UTC

nosuchthing wrote: post #113

encoderer wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Otoh, are the very best agents going to work for rf and make less money? Redfin looks like modern KW to me. Most great agents don't want to undersell their own industry. And while there are many markets where a mediocre agent will do, I wouldn't take that chance in sf, la, Nyc, Miami, etc

What differentiates real estate agents in terms of "skill"? It seems like their access to information of products available for sale would be the only useful service a from a real estate company. Of course, granted knowledge of which houses are available, helping the buyer find something they like is important but could this not be done with a google street view type system?

It could. But the last two properties we bought were purchased through an agent before they were listed on MLS. I've discovered that there is a pre-sales lag between properties being put under contract and being listed on MLS. Agents call and find out what hasn't been listed yet. It worked out great for us in the last two purchases. But it may also not be typical.

Re: What Zillow doesn't want you to know about its listing gap

#145

Post by novaleaf » Wed, Oct 07, 2015, 2:26 AM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #83

bcg1 wrote: post #61

Sold my house this summer. My wife listed the house on Zillow and took nice looking pictures and put a good description. We also paid a real estate agent $300 to list our house in the MLS (and we would handle the rest of the sale). Once our listing was in the MLS Zillow brought in the crapified compressed JPEGs from the MLS feed and overwrote our description etc, and locked us out from further edits. Fail. Zillow is…

You just listed all the reasons Redfin ( https://www.redfin.com ) is killing it. Their value proposition is that their agents aren't paid on commission, they're paid on your satisfaction. Their website is also very data-intensive compared to MLS sites (which create information asymmetry between buyers, sellers, and brokers due to how they're setup).

i bought a house on redfin (my 2nd house) and if you are willing to put in time to scout out your house, it's a good cash savings. (which, probably you should, since you are going to live in it!)

I ended up touring maybe 15 houses. Reasonably sure that the house we got was the best deal out of them too.

Re: What Zillow doesn't want you to know about its listing gap

#146

Post by cowsandmilk » Wed, Oct 07, 2015, 2:45 AM UTC

aggieben wrote: post #111

rconti wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the market. In a competitive market, I want my agent to be as dedicated as possible, not one taking a smaller cut. We won a 13-offer bidding war on a financed deal with only a SLIGHTLY higher price than the 2nd place, all-cash offer. anything could have made the difference in the deal, and I'm more than happy to throw another 10k at the agent to have it locked down. You're right that traditional agents hav…

> but so does a Redfin agent I don't see how - and anyway, a buyer's agent can be a big waste of money in a lot of markets. Traditional single-family housing transactions aren't that complicated, and a great many buyers could handle one on their own just fine. I applaud _any_ effort to undermine the NAR.

> I don't see how

redfin gets more money with a higher price. And there are some homes redfin will not show you at all because the price is too low (and a middle range where they use "partner agents" rather than their own). And I'm not talking your 5-figure houses in suburbia, I'm talking condos in the city of boston. I have a rooftop pool, fitness center, and concierge in my building, but the price I bought my condo in 2014 was too low for redfin. Meanwhile, my buyer's agent from century 21 got 10% knocked off the list price for me, despite list being 75% of what I was willing to spend.

Re: What Zillow doesn't want you to know about its listing gap

#147

Post by cowsandmilk » Wed, Oct 07, 2015, 2:50 AM UTC

kelukelugames wrote: post #118

encoderer wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Otoh, are the very best agents going to work for rf and make less money? Redfin looks like modern KW to me. Most great agents don't want to undersell their own industry. And while there are many markets where a mediocre agent will do, I wouldn't take that chance in sf, la, Nyc, Miami, etc

Oh boy, this is my time to shine. I just left Redfin for a new job and had to explain to my co workers why Redfin is able to offer a lower rate without sacrificing service. 1. Real estate agents spend a lot of time prospecting. In fact, the spend most of their time looking for customers instead of closing deals. The typical work week might be 30 hours of prospecting and 10 hours of actually working on a deal. 2. The…

> 5. If you show up to a traditional brokerage and want to buy a 200k house then do you think they will send their top agent? On the other end, someone with a 1~2+ million budget will get the best agent and they will bend over backwards to keep you happy. This is true for Redfin or any traditional brokerage.

Do you actually know what redfin does for a $200k property in a city where that is "inexpensive"?

Let's look in Boston at a $229,000 property:

https://www.redfin.com/MA/Boston/198-Allston-St-02135/unit-1...

Quoting from redfin:

> Below Minimum Price > To ensure every client gets the highest level of Redfin service during strong demand, Redfin is currently unable to service this property. Get more details > > To learn more or see this home, contact the listing agent directly: > Jerome Bibuld: 617-642-5456 > Red Tree Real Estate

Yeah, redfin really is beating out traditional brokerages with that response.

Re: What Zillow doesn't want you to know about its listing gap

#148

Post by blue11 » Wed, Oct 07, 2015, 2:53 AM UTC

kelukelugames wrote: post #31

Redfin is not even listed. Snubbed.

Personally, I've always found Redfin so much better than Zillow in the areas that are covered by Redfin (better data, better UI, overall better user experience). Having lived only in such areas for more than 10 years, I was surprised a few years ago to discover that Zillow was the industry leader.

Re: What Zillow doesn't want you to know about its listing gap

#149

Post by ryanSrich » Wed, Oct 07, 2015, 2:59 AM UTC

Semi related. In Portland every single house on Zillow was actually already sold. I'm not exactly sure how this works, but it was very annoying. The only app that would show houses that were actually still on the market was Redfin. Has anyone else in a different area experienced this?

Re: What Zillow doesn't want you to know about its listing gap

#150

Post by Bartkusa » Wed, Oct 07, 2015, 3:02 AM UTC

rhc2104 wrote: post #76

nickgrosvenor wrote: post #75

Redfin is more accurate than zillow, They list new listings much faster and the interface is better. I'm in LA and redfin is superior.

Redfin is pretty different from Zillow, since they directly sell homes. So they will have better/faster listings directly from the MLS. But they only have listings for the regions where they sell homes, so they have nothing for most of the United States.

Most Americans currently live in areas served by Redfin.

Most of the US is very sparsely populated, so I don't think that's a good measure of coverage. Rural areas and smaller cities deserve service, too, but that'll come with time.

(I'm currently employed by Redfin.)