Redfin announces sale prices in real time, uh, maybe

The online brokerage Redfin announced a cool new tool for those interested in SoCal real estate prices. The Seattle-based online brokerage is now posting closed-sale prices and photographs for houses in a variety of big real estate markets as soon as the listing broker marks the property as sold.

The new version of the company’s website integrates data from the local databases that brokers use to take properties on and off the market, according to a release by the company this morning. The upgrade added 9.6 million photos for 1.4 million recent property sales with an average of more than 100 data fields on the property’s features.

Michael Smedberg, chief of of Redfin’s query and statistics team, says the upgrade will allow consumers to do their own comparative analyses of homes that were previously the purview of real estate agents.

“Comparative Market Analyses are one of the real estate industry’s ‘killer applications,’ ” Smedberg said in today's release, “but they're often shrouded in mystery; agents have direct access to data such as prices and photos for just-sold homes, but buyers rarely do. Without that direct access, consumers have had to rely on the expertise and availability of their agent, and this in turn made it hard to figure out on their own what to offer or ask for a listing.”

The company also announced that it has added trackbacks to its site, which will allow bloggers to automatically link to Web pages featuring properties.

Test run: It appears that Redfin’s site is groaning under the load of its new features. All morning the home page has had this message: “We're working hard to bring you a better Redfin. The site is unavailable for a brief time while we update our service. Please check back in a few minutes.”

Redfin Chief Executive Glenn Kelman just confirmed in an e-mail that the site keeps crashing for “the first time in a year or maybe two” and that we should hold off on our posting. Whoops. Too late.

-- Alejandro Lazo

Comments

[Cynthia Nowak]

Being able to see closed-sales prices and photographs isn't new. Sawbuck (http://www.sawbuck.com) has been providing this data in the Los Angeles area since July 1, 2009; and even longer in other markets such as Washington, D.C. and Baltimore.

Sawbuck also shows when a property is under contract. So, if you've been watching a home to see if the prices drops and it suddenly disappears you can check to see if the seller accepted an offer or if it was just taken off the market.

[Future Home Buyer]

Gret new feature, I love it! Beats having old listing pictures saved on my computer to try and remember which house looked like what on the inside at the time of sale.

[Brent]

You gotta love these guys!! Redfin is the best website for house buyers... and sellers. No longer do you have to rely on a Realtor who may or may not have your best interest at heart. Transparency in Real Estate information is a beautiful thing. Two thumbs up Redfin!!

[Jason]

I tried this out today. Redfin is phenomenal.

[Susan Brooks]

All this love from the newspapers for online companies such as Redfin and Amazon will disappear when the newspapers finally get a clue and realize that these online companies don't buy ads or offer any other kind of support in return.

Whole sections of the newspaper disappeared when travel agencies started to change their business model.

Real estate and classified ads are already getting thin. Traditional real estate firms buy the majority of ads. Redfin has never spent a dime in real estate advertising.

Be careful what you wish for.

[Laker]

Susan Brooks....
Another desperate RE (house wife).
Nothing personal, but your service, especially on the buyer's side is just overpriced. Opening the doors of a house should not cost the buyer 3%....
We should stay away from any commissioned sales person, especially a used house sales person.

[Ace]

"All this love from the newspapers for online companies such as Redfin and Amazon will disappear "

Ultimately, NAR could just stop selling MLS information to companies like Redfin. Without the realtor's listings, they would only have for sale by owner and make me move.

It wont happen soon. There is enough money to go around. Some people will use Redfin. Most will use full service agents. Over time, companies like Redfin will get a bigger piece of the pie and Realtors will have to adapt.

[sfvrealestate]

Guys, who do you think posts the sales info on the mls that Redfin mines? That's right, Realtors. (And no, it's not always done in a timely manner.) And Cynthia, short sales show "active" even when they've received accepted offers and won't be shown anymore, due to odd bank rules.