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Real estate site Redfin files for IPO

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Re: Real estate site Redfin files for IPO

#221

Post by hijinks »

vostok wrote: post #186
hijinks wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wanted redfin to work when we solf our house in the SF Bay area a few months ago. Redfin's issue is the selling agent was located 45 minutes away and just ran random comps and said our house was 120k lower then market. She said it would never sell for what I thought it was worth. So we ended up going with a local agent who put it on market for more then we thought and it sold for 1% over asking.

This happens with full price agents too. In my experience, their "expertise" is really just confidence and bluster. Commissions are high not because real estate salespeople are good, but because they are inefficient and because they operate under a de facto cartel.

I agree, we just ended up going with someone who specialized in the area instead of dealing with Redfin agent who said it would never sell.

I love their site for searching.

Re: Real estate site Redfin files for IPO

#222

Post by just4themoney »

opo wrote: post #126
ericb wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A house sale is really a large contract agreement with a number of finer points. The legal fees were maybe $750 - 1200 but memory is sketchy on that. There are filings necessary with the state and other items that make it legal, and at least in Massachusetts USA, it is a lot different than say selling a mountain bike. Banks need certain info for loans, there's the deed, etc, inspections, etc. When you are signing you…

I agree it would be a bit risky to buy/sell real estate without any outside help. My point was just that if you are already using a realtor, it shouldn't generally be necessary to also hire a lawyer.

How do you get a mortgage without a lawyer? Our bank required the lawyer to do the title search, title settlement, and title recording - according to my closing disclosure, which I just consulted.

Re: Real estate site Redfin files for IPO

#223

Post by dgfgfdagasdfgfa »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #110
msielski wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowledge of process, not just market. Which, don't get me wrong should also be easy to automate.

The hubris of this forum is astounding sometimes. Zillow and Redfin have attempted to automate just the valuation of properties (with enourmous resources behind them), and still aren't as accurate as traditional appraisers. It's easy? Edit: Even Zillow agrees. There's a million dollar prize if you can do better. http://www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/guid/D24B68EC-4090-11E7...

Getting the appraisal from the place that's selling to you seems like an inherent and obvious conflict of interest. Ideally the appraisal should be a flat flee from a third party.

In the context of your comment, what value do you see realtors providing w/r/t appraisals?

Re: Real estate site Redfin files for IPO

#224

Post by codebook »

I am actively looking the house right now. And getting disappointed by Redfin these days. Previously it showed listed price for sold properties but now it has gone. Only sold price is shown. Not only this, but the property disappeared from MLS then re-listed with higher price tag doesn't show previously listed price.

Information should be transparent between seller and buyer but Redfin is leaning to seller side at this moment.

So, I am using Zillow more frequently than before.

Re: Real estate site Redfin files for IPO

#225

Post by gedy »

totalrobe wrote: post #150
existencebox wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me offer a different viewpoint. Redfin absolutely serves a purpose, but in some markets, notably for my case very hot markets, it's a significant impediment. I really wanted redfin to work, shopping in seattle 2 years ago. I tried for almost a year, but they would consistently be not as contactable or prompt as we wanted, and gave us very erroneous advice when it came to crafting offers on some houses we wanted.…

I had a similar experience, although I caught on very quickly that the Redfin process was not going to work for me. We were first time home buyers relocating and were looking for a house in a new area. Wife and I looked for months online and actually found a house on Redfin. Contacted them to put in an offer and I get back "well, why don't you schedule some time to come down and look at some houses". On top of that,…

Weird, totally different experience with me. Found a place on Redfin, clicked the "buy"/etc button about 11pm. By 7am agent replied back to start offer. Was fast and great

Re: Real estate site Redfin files for IPO

#226

Post by dragonwriter »

gist wrote: post #211
dragonwriter wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seller's agents aren't paid a flat fee to align their interest with that of the seller; they want the deal to close at the highest price possible. Why buyer's agents are paid on sale-price-commission is, OTOH, a real question.

> Why buyer's agents are paid on sale-price-commission is Once again buyer's agents are a large part of the equation. They have to drive around the actual buyers and waste time showing properties with nothing to show for it often. So the way it works is the people who actually buy (or sell) make more money to compensate for people that do not buy.

But a sales price commission, of all possible completion-based pay structures, makes the interest of the agent misaligned with (opposed to, in some respect) that of the principal.

Re: Real estate site Redfin files for IPO

#227

Post by BadCookie »

haberman wrote: post #216

I'm closing literally today on a house I bought through Redfin. It's my third Redfin buying experience. Redfin for buying is great. Their website makes it easy to look for properties and get alerts when properties you might like go on the market. No need to pay a realtor to do that part. I'm still not using Redfin for selling. When you sell, you're paying for a salesman, and a salesman can make a big difference on ho…

Indeed. When I needed to sell a house in the East Bay, the Redfin agent wanted to list the property for almost 20% less than it sold for. When I told her that I thought she was pricing it too low, she looked at me like I was crazy. The local agent that we ended up using instead (who had recently sold 3-5 houses in our same neighborhood) had a much better idea of what the house was actually worth, and also paid to stage the house--which Redfin would not have done.

We used Redfin to purchase that house, and our purchase experience was very positive, but selling the house with Redfin could have cost us a bundle. It would probably have been fine if property prices had not been rising so quickly at the time, but regardless, I am a believer in the value of staging which is a service not covered by Redfin's fees.

Re: Real estate site Redfin files for IPO

#228

Post by just4themoney »

opo wrote: post #133
runako wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to keep pricing in context, the media home value in the US is right around $200k. So the transfer cost ends up being ~$12k. If the RE attorneys (on each side) each spent a full day @ $200/hour on the closing, you're looking at $3,200. That creates an extra $9k to split between the parties. And there's no way a closing takes a full day for an attorney (and most will be less than $200/hr). The best part is that th…

>... That creates an extra $9k to split between the parties. And there's no way a closing takes a full day for an attorney (and most will be less than $200/hr). Yes, most brokers use standard forms, there isn't much actual expense there for them - which is a good thing because a real estate attorney I know bills at more than $400 per hour. A good realtor does a LOT more than just fill out the contracts for you to sig…

You (the buyer) schedules the inspection, you can ask the real estate agent to do it for you but it's a simple phone call.

I don't understand the contractors statement, a contractor is not a usual part of a real estate transaction, at least in my experience?

Once again, scheduling photographs is a simple phone call to a photographer.

Putting an ad on the MLS can be done yourself for a small fee - https://fsbo.com/flat-fee-mls

Buyer's questions can be better answered yourself, most sellers agents are unable to answer any questions and they'll have to relay most questions to you anyways, once again, my experience.

Open houses are more about generating leads for the agent then they are about showing your house.

Negotiating with buyers can be done yourself easily.

Working with the title company isn't something real estate agents do, not around here anyways. My lawyer handled all the title stuff. Plus what sort of "work" does an agent need to do with the title company?

Handing off the keys? Seriously? That is done at closing and shouldn't cost $5,000+.

Re: Real estate site Redfin files for IPO

#229

Post by just4themoney »

lighthazard wrote: post #28
japhyr wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I live in a small isolated town, and I thought realtors were artificially increasing the home prices (not values, but prices) in the small pool of housing available here. But their local knowledge was invaluable in both buying and selling a home. That said, if a buyer and seller agree on a sale independently of any realtor here, we can go to a local realtor and they'll happily facilitate the sale for a flat…

It seems the takeaway from all these comments here is that there needs to be more education in the home buying experience.

Agents and brokers tend to make the home buying process as complicated and as murky as possible on purpose, job security.

Re: Real estate site Redfin files for IPO

#230

Post by manyxcxi »

bkjelden wrote: post #12

I hope this company sees nothing but success. I bought my house through Redfin last year, and not only did I save ~$5k in commissions compared to a conventional realtor, I also felt the process was much smoother and more pleasant than other times I've interacted with a conventional realtor. It's simply absurd that in an era where any buyer can view photos of a house for sale online real estate agents still expect to…

I think in a lot of cases realtors aren't the necessity they used to be, because of tools like Redfin. It used to be VERY hard (or near impossible?) to pull past sale data, comps, and various other bits of info on your own.

As a buyer, a realtor is rarely a bad choice because they likely won't cost you any money, as they usually negotiate out of he seller's fees. They help out a ton when it comes to bidding, what we could likely ask for, and the personal relationship they may have with the selling realtor. Need recommendations for an inspector or mortgage broker? They likely have some good contacts.

As a buyer, I'll probably always use a realtor, likely the last realtor I used- she was so smart and tactical that she probably would be successful in any career path she chose.

We moved from Seattle to Portland about a year ago, I grew up in Portland and didn't need any help figuring out where to live- I sure did need help in figuring out how to stand out when we were consistently one of multiple offers (one house had 13 offers three hours after the open house and closed for ~25% over asking). The inspector we used was recommended by our realtor and was so good/such a bulldog he even got the construction company to repair things they initially considered 'within spec' (we bought brand new).

Counter to that, my mom sold her house for $60K (about 15%) over what some realtor estimated she could, using only Redfin. She received 5 offers on day one.

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