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Real estate site Redfin files for IPO

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Re: Real estate site Redfin files for IPO

#271

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...

Are you sure traditional appraiser is the right term? They cannot predict actual sales price.

Re: Real estate site Redfin files for IPO

#272
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think the same way, but then I bought my first house and my realtor was insanely helpful. The entire process is filled with random quagmires that I would have never known how to manage otherwise. Someone with more experience may be more able to go it alone obviously, but my realtor was invaluable.

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…

Bulk of commission actually covers prospecting. This is how the Redfin model works. It saves the agents time by funneling customers to them through the website :)

Re: Real estate site Redfin files for IPO

#273
redfin maps + school ratings + real time alerts, and when I say real time I mean I was in a house in fremont with my realtor and I got an alert during the private viewing that the house just went pending, hah! In any case, this site was instrumental in helping us find a house. RDFN is definitely going in my portfolio.

Re: Real estate site Redfin files for IPO

#274
post #108

I'm very interested in why many people believe a realtor should receive a percentage of the home's sale price as compensation but not the: - inspector (arguably a good one is more useful than realtor by pointing out foundation problems and other issues that can cost 10s of thousands) - attorney (again, arguably more useful. they can point out clauses and things like flood zone, unpermitted work, liens on the property…

lol, i paid an inspector to look at my newly constructed condo. easiest 500 bucks he ever made.

Re: Real estate site Redfin files for IPO

#275
Redfin is a big pile of nothing. It's a glorified real estate agency which is itself an anachronism or soon will be.

You can easily find online or other brokers ready to "sell" your house which just means listing it on the realtors' association multiple site listings for 1% or even a few hundred dollars. The realtors association still control everything in terms of having all the data on homes for sale.

They could have some opportunity in giving buyers rebates i.e. having a 1-2% margin for buyers which most agents don't give, mostly because it's a lot luck to find a buyer than to represent the sell-side.

The idea that it's worth around 8x revenues...a low margin business as a real estate agency is...is a stretch, though to be fair, their revenues are fast-growing without that much of a marketing spend.

Not sure how their quarterly sales vary (seems like a lot in their profitability at least) but their latest quarter was terrible with only $6 mn in gross income on nearly $60 million in revenues and then $30 mn in operating expenses.

They claim to have helped users buy/sell $40 billion in real estate last year but showed just $270 mn in revenues which is something like .8% of that market value (while it should be in the 1.5 to 2.5% range I think). Not sure why that it is.

Re: Real estate site Redfin files for IPO

#276
Disclaimer: After a decade of working in the real estate industry in various aspects I will say it is a sh*t show of incompetence, laziness and greed.

While most real estate sites are bad, zillow is awful and Realtor.com should be considered a crime against humanity. I have to say redfin seems "ok"

On that note I am surprised that redfin is missing basic marketing messaging.

Re: Real estate site Redfin files for IPO

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What marketing plan is going to sell a house in a week? None at market value. Do not agree. Markets are only collections of people, and brokers know people, some of whom are buyers and a few of whom are the perfect buyers. Reaching those people is the marketing plan. Also, this is not buying airplane tickets, this is the single most costly and complicated process buyers and sellers will likely go through in their w…

"This is the single most costly and complicated process people will go through. .." so why hire someone for 5-7% of the purchase price, who doesn't have a college degree and has been in the industry for 3 years or less. Furthermore, notice the incentives if you're a buyer literally everyone in the transaction from real estate agent to mortgage broker wants the price to be as high as possible. The incentives all point…

How is your solution any different to the other hundreds of FSBO platforms currently operating? What value does it bring over Redfin or Zillow? Why would real estate agents, escrow agents, mortgage brokers want to work with you if it means a lower fee for them?

Re: Real estate site Redfin files for IPO

#278
post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. Yes obviously you can do that. But you have to take the time to research the different companies a little to find a good one and you have to be there while the inspection is done. >...I don't understand the contractors statement, a contractor is not a usual part of a real estate transaction, at…

>you have to take the time to research the different companies a little to find a good one and you have to be there while the inspection is done. You should ALWAYS be there when inspection is done. Always. You're paying for it after all. Research? Yes, you should regardless. I couldn't imagine not being there and/or not researching. Real estate agents are useless in this step. How does this have to do with an agent o…

>...At closing the keys are hand over. There isn't any other way.

What you mean to say is that you can't imagine that things could be done differently than how it was done where you are located. That pretty much sums up every comment you made here...

Re: Real estate site Redfin files for IPO

#279

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…

Let me guess, that ~$5k is less than 1% of what you would pay in total. No offense (and sorry for being off-topic) but I never get how people obsess over the under 1 or 2% cost savings while completely ignoring the overvalued principal. Two other examples, - People go over to buy a $50-$70k car and later boast how "they made" the salesman give them a $500 or $1k discount. (well what about a fully-functioning $20k car…

>you only have one credit-card

nothing inherently wrong with that. You won't have maximum access to credit and multiple bank relationships but those consequences may not be relevant to you.

> you make sure you don't overspend

That's great, but not related to the number of credit cards someone has.

> never paid attention to how many points you accumulate.

Some people obsess with points but there's a difference between not accumulating optimally and not accumulating at all. It's incredibly simple to get a 1-2% discount on all money you spend by using credit cards. But, again, that opportunity cost may not be relevant to you.

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