Coming from a background in real estate as an active broker who has worked with Redfin agents, I'd like to point out a few things. Redfin's biggest asset is their website. It's a good user experience and grabs them a lot of leads. However, Redfin agents tend to be subpar agents when representing sellers and or buyers. Most wouldn't survive in a regular brokerage setting. If I am hiring an agent, I want a hungry service oriented agents, not someone who is fine with receiving a salary. Discounts are enticing to consumers, but from what I have noticed these discounts come at a cost to their clients. Rather than list a bunch of examples, from what I have witnessed, Redfin agents are not all that skilled in negotiating. They are actually horrible. Redfin needs to train better but training is a multi-faceted issue. They need experienced brokers who have been beaten up and have seen it all. I was lucky to have a mentor who played a significant role in redefining the industry back in 2001. Let's just say, nobody knew what the concept of Exclusive Buyer Agency was during the late 90s. Anyway, in order to have great agents, they need to learn from smarter battle tested agents in the office. An agent needs good instincts to represent clients well. This takes time - 10,000 hours easy and they need to see a lot of deal flow. You learn from the ugly deals, not the smooth ones. Fortunately, for Redfin most Redfin buyers/sellers won't realize how good their agent is until they have something to compare it to. Redfin does not have top agents nor can the attract high-quality agents. In order for them to succeed in the public market, they will need to increase fees because the cost of maintaining and attracting talent isn't cheap. Discounting gives companies a good chance to obtain market share. But market share will go down once they raise fees. Historically speaking, discount real estate companies don't do well in public markets. Let's look at one example of a company associated with discounts, Zip Realty. I think they did an IPO in 2004 or so. Over the years things didn't go well so they were forced to merge. Now, you might say, REDFIN is different. This is somewhat true but I am sure if you read the Redfin S1, you will see some of the concerns I have addressed.
This is coming from a non-traditional broker. I have always gone against the grain. I believe Redfin will need to evolve a lot to get the public market to embrace them. If I had to guess they will become a little more "traditional" overtime.
I hope Redfin trains better and figures things out. Otherwise, they will need to merge post-IPO.
Sorry for the long comment. I could write forever on this topic. I may do this on my site when I have a couple of hours.