{"id":974,"date":"2007-01-30T13:27:32","date_gmt":"2007-01-30T20:27:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=974"},"modified":"2007-05-13T20:02:23","modified_gmt":"2007-05-14T03:02:23","slug":"redfin-and-the-antics-of-the-intx-crowd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/974\/redfin-and-the-antics-of-the-intx-crowd\/","title":{"rendered":"Redfin and the antics of the INTx crowd . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"

By my lights, one of the most interesting bits of news to come out of Inman Connect was Redfin’s announcement that they plan to swim into Boston Harbor<\/a>. Washington State has reasonably normal wild-West real estate laws, as does California. The natural leap, in terms of maintaining a decent level of sanity over legal compliance, would be to migrate to nearby states — Nevada and Arizona leap to mind.<\/p>\n

There is a problem with this idea, though. The median home price in Phoenix is around $260,000. In Las Vegas, the median is around $300,000. If Redfin proposes to give back two-thirds of a $9,000 commission, there is a word for what’s left: Doodly.<\/p>\n

Unlike a true bottom-feeder, Redfin has encysted itself with a boatload of dead-heading barnacles<\/a>. This is why it keeps trying to grow into luxury markets: The company needs one third of a bigger commission bite even to make a pretense at covering its inflated payroll.<\/p>\n

Kris Berg points out today that this is a less than brilliant strategy<\/a>, inasmuch as buyers and sellers of luxury homes are busy people who have the money to pay for the kind of roll-out-the-red-carpet service they have come to expect. “We do nothing for less” is not a winning value proposition, generally speaking, among prosperous people.<\/p>\n

There is an exception to this rule, however. Kris hints at it by suggesting that younger people might be attracted to Redfin. They might, but few of them are buying or selling at the $500,000 level and above. Redfin actually sends a stronger hint by announcing their plans to jump to Boston.<\/p>\n

A couple of months ago, I was on the phone with Galen Ward<\/a>. He suggested to me that, while Redfin’s approach to the marketplace was only popular with hi-tech Seattlites for now, eventually they would be seen as early-adopters and the business model would meet broad acceptance in the marketplace. This is a colorable proposition, I suppose.<\/p>\n

Just after Inman, I mentioned on Rain City Guide that I thought Move, Inc’s. Alan Dalton had mopped up Redfin’s Glenn Kelman in their debate<\/a>. The example I offered was this: If you Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By my lights, one of the most interesting bits of news to come out of Inman Connect was Redfin’s announcement that they plan to swim into Boston Harbor. Washington State has reasonably normal wild-West real estate laws, as does California. The natural leap, in terms of maintaining a decent level of sanity over legal compliance, […]<\/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-974","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":2553,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2553\/big-news-ignore-all-that-fine-print-tear-through-all-that-red-tape-redfincom-supports-safari-at-last\/","url_meta":{"origin":974,"position":0},"title":"Big News: Ignore all that fine print, tear through all that red tape — Redfin.com supports Safari at last!","author":"Greg Swann","date":"January 30, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Oh, wait, that's not the big news from Redfin.com. In fact, I reported the really big news last night:Redfin will either make money or it won\u2019t, and, in the long run, if it endures into a long run, it will become more like traditional real estate even as traditional real\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":1820,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1820\/redfin-lessons-in-how-not-to-succeed\/","url_meta":{"origin":974,"position":1},"title":"Redfin: Lessons in How NOT to Succeed","author":"Jeff Kempe","date":"August 18, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"No apologies for the topic. As many problems as exist in the real estate industry -- many more than the practiced elites would like to acknowledge, many fewer than the bubbleheads need to satisfy their tantrums -- Redfin has made itself a prominent example of how not to improve things.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":654,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/654\/redfin-again\/","url_meta":{"origin":974,"position":2},"title":"Redfin Again","author":"Russell Shaw","date":"November 19, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Trevor Smith writes (and I respond): Your comment about Redfin is not only ignorant it is probably borderline libel. Please feel free to pass my comments and my contact information along to them. Do you even know exactly what services Redfin does or does not provide? No. What I do\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":12308,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/12308\/should-redfin-be-renamed-right-fin\/","url_meta":{"origin":974,"position":3},"title":"Should Redfin Be Renamed Right-Fin ?","author":"Brian Brady","date":"June 16, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"A La Jolla real estate broker noticed an article on Gawker.com, about a listing Redfin published, offering a currently occupied home (that isn't for sale).\u00a0 From Coastal Real Estate Stars: A new listing appeared on Redfin this weekend\u2026.1600 Pennsylvania Avenue! Now, in fairness to the Redfin folks, garbage in= garbage\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1438,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1438\/not-to-be-missed-marlow-the-hammer-harris-on-the-redfin-hustle\/","url_meta":{"origin":974,"position":4},"title":"Not to be missed: Marlow (The Hammer) Harris on the Redfin hustle","author":"Greg Swann","date":"May 16, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Eminently worth waiting for:I\u2019d love to be a fly on the wall at those meetings with the investors and venture capitalists. Pie charts, graphs, facts, figures. Lots of talk about disintermediation and volume of scale and that sort of thing. When Redfin fails, they won\u2019t blame themselves, the business model,\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":217,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/217\/i-think-this-my-be-the-more-interesting-redfin-news\/","url_meta":{"origin":974,"position":5},"title":"I think this may be the more interesting RedFin news . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"August 16, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Founder David Eraker to Leave Redfin. It certainly couldn't be because he was acting too much like a hard-headed real estate broker... Technorati Tags: blogging, disintermediation, dual agency, real estate, real estate marketing","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\/974","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=974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}