{"id":2917,"date":"2008-04-08T01:07:05","date_gmt":"2008-04-08T08:07:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=2917"},"modified":"2008-04-08T01:17:54","modified_gmt":"2008-04-08T08:17:54","slug":"redfincom-wakes-up-smells-coffee-staples-galoshes-to-forehead-now-redfin-buyers-will-be-able-to-see-homes-in-an-almost-normal-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2917\/redfincom-wakes-up-smells-coffee-staples-galoshes-to-forehead-now-redfin-buyers-will-be-able-to-see-homes-in-an-almost-normal-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Redfin.com wakes up, smells coffee, staples galoshes to forehead: Now Redfin buyers will be able to see homes in an almost-normal way"},"content":{"rendered":"

The uncontested brilliance of the free market is that it is self-correcting. People like me have been bitching all along that Redfin.com’s approach to buyer representation was misguided if not outright evil. Conceding some huge chunk of the buyer’s agent’s commission to the buyer was certainly consumer-friendly, but pushing the cost of buyer representation off onto the listing agent was vile. “Stick it to the man” rhetoric might play well with Leslie Stahl, but we have no way of knowing how often the listing agent is working for one percentage point of the sales price — or even for nothing.<\/p>\n

But: So what. So long as listers were too cowardly to contest Redfin’s claims to having earned the buyer’s agent’s commission even when it had violated the everyday understanding of procuring cause, every erg of outsized bitching was just so much wasted energy. If the Redfin experience was satisfying to its buyers, not much else seemed to matter.<\/p>\n

Except…<\/p>\n

Of course, the Redfin experience wasn’t<\/em> satisfying to buyers. As much as they might like the idea of shopping for homes from an on-line catalog, when it came time to actually squeeze the fruit, a surprising number of them wanted to actually squeeze the fruit.<\/p>\n

So: Redfin had to provide home tours when its cost structure was built around not<\/em> providing home tours. Then it had to start charging cash fees for home tours. Then it built an elaborate mechanism whereby buyers could schedule two home tours for free, then pay $250 a pop for additional tours. And today, without fanfare, Redfin.com announces its Redfin Select program, whereby buyers can schedule unlimited home tours in exchange for a reduced commission rebate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

First: All hail The Market, which speaks lucidly even to deaf ears.<\/p>\n

But second: Ugh.<\/p>\n

Listen to this:<\/p>\n

With Select, we take you on tour twice a week, every week, until you find a home.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That “twice a week” sounds a little school-marmish, doesn’t it? “You will walk in single file, boy-girl, boy-girl, in a neat and orderly fashion.” God help the poor relos in town from Thursday to Sunday. Twice a week means twice a week, pal.<\/p>\n

Okayfine. Progress is Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The uncontested brilliance of the free market is that it is self-correcting. People like me have been bitching all along that Redfin.com’s approach to buyer representation was misguided if not outright evil. Conceding some huge chunk of the buyer’s agent’s commission to the buyer was certainly consumer-friendly, but pushing the cost of buyer representation off […]<\/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":[4,6,5,27,19],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2917","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-disintermediation","7":"category-marketing","8":"category-real-estate","9":"category-redfincom","10":"category-technology","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":2917,"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":285,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/285\/remarks-from-redfincom-broker-glenn-kelman\/","url_meta":{"origin":2917,"position":1},"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":1894,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1894\/why-do-traditional-realtors-despise-discounters-like-redfincom\/","url_meta":{"origin":2917,"position":2},"title":"Why do traditional Realtors despise discounters like Redfin.com?","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 5, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"This is me, guest-posting at Blown Mortgage while Morgan Brown is on vacation:So why is a limited-service listing unlikely to succeed? If you\u2019re in a high-demand market like Seattle, it just might. But in most of America, right now, a home must be marketed perfectly from the first day or\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":2917,"position":3},"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":289,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/289\/detailing-the-mechanics-of-the-redfin-cost-shift\/","url_meta":{"origin":2917,"position":4},"title":"Detailing the mechanics of the Redfin cost shift . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 5, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Taking on the New York Times' fawning coverage of Redfin.com, Jim Kimmons at Transforming Real Estate details the details behind the cooperation\/compensation model of real estate brokerage:The contention that the listing agent should be pleased to show an \"eager buyer\" the home when they come with no agent is just\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":1422,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1422\/60-minutes-delivers-400-hits-in-sixty-minutes\/","url_meta":{"origin":2917,"position":5},"title":"60 Minutes’ Redfin.com story delivers 400 hits in 60 minutes flat . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"May 13, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Who says the old media is dead? In the hour just ended, Redfin.com's Real Estate Consumer's Bill of Rights: A wolf in sheepskin clothing had over 400 hits from organic search. Just think what might happen if the NAR made reasoned arguments instead of trying to club reality into shape\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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2917","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=2917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2917\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}