RISMEDIA, Feb. 12, 2007-Online real estate broker Redfin Corporation has launched a real estate e-commerce service for Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego, and announced the opening of Redfin offices in each of these markets. With this launch, Redfin increases the number of properties for sale on its site by more than 340%.
Southern California consumers now can buy or sell MLS-listed properties online, using the Web to gather basic information and then work with a local, experienced Redfin agent on pricing, negotiations and escrow. The premise of the Redfin service is to use technology to offer better service from offer to close than a traditional agent, and to refund most of the commission.
Redfin's service now will be available in Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, San Diego, Riverside and Ventura counties. Southern California buyers who work with Redfin get two-thirds of the commission refunded at closing; for a $500,000 house offering a typical three percent commission to the buyer's agent, the refund would be $10,000. For a $1 million house, the refund would be $20,000. The average Redfin customer in Northern California has received a refund of $13,539.35. Redfin also offers each home-buyer a free afternoon of home tours, scheduled via its Web site.
Sellers pay a flat fee of $2,000, saving $13,000 over a typical seller's agent commission of three percent on a $500,000 house. Unlike any other brokerage, Redfin pays its agents bonuses based on customer satisfaction, not commissions, and offers a 100% customer satisfaction guarantee, refunding all commissions and fees if the customer is dissatisfied.
To support the Southern California market, Redfin has opened offices in Sherman Oaks, Chino Hills and Del Mar, staffed with experienced, local agents. Over the next year, Redfin plans to open more offices in Southern California for better local support. The company also has upgraded its Web site with listings from nine multiple listing services for complete Southern California coverage, and added past sales data and property outlines for most of the properties in the area.
Redfin first entered the California market in the San Francisco Bay Area on May 31, 2006, and served its first Southern California customers last month. "I was impressed that our Redfin agent worked to negotiate a significant discount from the list price on top of a substantial rebate that allowed us to get into a house we may not otherwise have afforded," said Eric Allsopp, who is scheduled to close on his Redfin-purchased San Diego home later in February.
"The simultaneous opening of Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego markets inaugurates a new era of expansion for Redfin," said Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman. "We spent our first year of real estate operations building support infrastructure so we could serve customers on a national scale, and making sure that our first expansion market, San Francisco, could contribute profits. With Dave Wilner now running real estate operations, Microsoft Virtual Earth as a national map platform, and a new customer database coming online just last week, we're ready to grow nationwide."
For more information, visit http://www.redfin.com.
