{"id":1083,"date":"2007-02-26T19:59:02","date_gmt":"2007-02-27T02:59:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=1083"},"modified":"2007-05-13T19:57:15","modified_gmt":"2007-05-14T02:57:15","slug":"thinking-skeptically-to-rain-on-redfincoms-parade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1083\/thinking-skeptically-to-rain-on-redfincoms-parade\/","title":{"rendered":"Thinking skeptically to rain on Redfin.com’s parade . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m not a Jesuit, but I play one on BloodhoundBlog. The real truth is, I’m a roll-your-own Jesuit, more auto-didact than anything. I didn’t have Brian Brady’s inestimable advantage of having had the gift of reason literally pounded into me. Instead, I had to stuff it between my own ears by hand. But one way or another, lay student or Brother, if you walk in the path of Ignatius Loyola, you learn to think skeptically. Any affirmative claim is far<\/i> more likely to be false than true.<\/p>\n

This morning, Redfin.com posted a claim<\/a> that MLS results “prove” that Redfin agents are better negotiators than other agents in the Seattle area. If CEO Glenn Kelman had made a claim like this in Brother Paul’s class, he’d be up late tonight writing a paper, striving either to prove or disprove it.<\/p>\n

The problem is not that the claim is necessarily<\/i> false. The problem is that that there are so many ways that it might<\/i> be false that, to call it true without eliminating each one of these canards and false paths is an inherently tendentious statement — suasion, not per<\/i>suasion.<\/p>\n

Before I begin work on my<\/i> much shorter paper on why the claim is dubious, I want to raise three meta-issues. First, I do not have access to the underlying data. If I did, I might write a much longer and much more conclusive paper. Second, I would have much greater faith in the mainstream media if more reporters were tuned to a Jesuitical tenor of skepticism. And third, the tabbed browser window is an excellent tool for organizing the resources to be used in an exercise like this.<\/p>\n

First, Redfin claims that its results rebut the claim that a salaried (and possibly inexperienced) agent will not negotiate as aggressively as a traditional real estate agent working on a straight commission compensation plan:<\/p>\n

After a year in the market, we decided to put our theory to the test, by querying the Northwest Multiple Listing Service for data on every home or condominium sold via a brokerage from February 6, 2006 (the date of Redfin Direct’s launch) through February Read more<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m not a Jesuit, but I play one on BloodhoundBlog. The real truth is, I’m a roll-your-own Jesuit, more auto-didact than anything. I didn’t have Brian Brady’s inestimable advantage of having had the gift of reason literally pounded into me. Instead, I had to stuff it between my own ears by hand. But one way […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,6,5,27],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1083","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-blogging","7":"category-disintermediation","8":"category-marketing","9":"category-real-estate","10":"category-redfincom","12":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":236,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/236\/how-to-exterminate-a-cowbird-a-comedy-in-three-acts\/","url_meta":{"origin":1083,"position":0},"title":"How to exterminate a cowbird — a comedy in three acts . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"August 23, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Act I -- Why Realtors hate discount listings... People think ordinary on-the-ground Realtors hate discount listings because of the discount. That's may be true of many real estate brokers, but real-life Realtors have two much better reasons to hate discount listings. First, the Buyer's Agent will have to do all\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Disintermediation"","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":281,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/281\/if-bill-clinton-ran-redfincom\/","url_meta":{"origin":1083,"position":1},"title":"If Bill Clinton ran Redfin.com . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 3, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Of the two \"innovative\" cowbird brokerages discussed in this morning's New York Times, the stronger of the two is BuySideInc.com. They're rebating even more of the buyer's agent's commission than is Redfin.com, but their actual profit center is in originating the loan -- a well-understood, fast, cheap, office-job function. Even\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Disintermediation"","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1031,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1031\/redfincoms-ceo-glenn-kelman-what-if-the-parasites-had-to-eat-the-parasites\/","url_meta":{"origin":1083,"position":2},"title":"Redfin.com’s CEO Glenn Kelman: “What if the parasites had to eat the parasites?”","author":"Greg Swann","date":"February 10, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"It's been a Redfin week for us. Kris Berg recorded her podcast with Glenn Kelman last week and I spent much of my spare time this week dealing with it. Allen Butler dealt with the audio quality, and then Cathleen and I went through the recording, pulling out apposite quotes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Real Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Real Estate","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/real-estate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2832,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2832\/redfincom-beats-the-field-again-this-time-in-both-seattle-and-san-francisco-buyers-pay-less-and-reap-commission-rebates-too\/","url_meta":{"origin":1083,"position":3},"title":"Redfin.com beats the field again, this time in both Seattle and San Francisco: Buyers pay less and reap commission rebates, too","author":"Greg Swann","date":"March 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Redfin.com has news this midnight, but it's the sort of thing I would normally ignore: It's basically the kind of rah-rah-for-us stuff I leave for the vendor cheerleaders and the mainstream media. But: I gave Redfin a lot of grief last year when they made a similar announcement, so today\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Disintermediation"","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":285,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/285\/remarks-from-redfincom-broker-glenn-kelman\/","url_meta":{"origin":1083,"position":4},"title":"Remarks from Redfin.com Broker Glenn Kelman . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 4, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Glenn Kelman, chief executive and broker of Redfin.com, posted a comment to one of my entries about that company. I replied to him there, but I'm posting the exchange here, as well, frankly because I consider it Big News. Here is Mr. Kelman's remark:Thanks for this thoughtful comment Greg. Many\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10658,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/10658\/whos-afraid-of-redfincom\/","url_meta":{"origin":1083,"position":5},"title":"Who’s Afraid of Redfin.com?","author":"Brian Brady","date":"December 21, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Bob Haywood, an Owasso, OK real estate agent makes a case for why you should be aware of Redfin.com.\u00a0 Bob articulates, from behind the cloaked wall on Active Rain, why Redfin.com is the REAL agent of change in the real estate industry.\u00a0 Read what Bob has to say: You should\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Disintermediation"","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}