RedFin for Buying a House
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
|
I see RedFin mentioned now and then -- was wondering what the latest experiences with it were. I know it had hiccups in the beginning, but those normally smooth out...
I want to buy a home in the $1MM range. I've lived in the area for 6 years, and there's only a small number or homes that I would consider. In other words, I don't need a ton of hand holding or house showings. I would try to just do a deal myself (parents are retired brokers, I'm an attorney -- can handle the closing stuff no problem), but I can't even get in to see a house w/o an agent. Thoughts? Any particular RedFin agent recommendations for Clarendon/Lyon Village? |
Anonymous
|
We bought a house through Redfin at a lower price point and had an incredible experience. And we ended up with approx $9K back at closing. We had used a couple diff agents before and this was the first time, we felt the agent was being completely honest with us, wasnt pressuring, and had no interest in us paying more than we wanted to. In fact, he even suggested a lower offer.
This was in SS with Russell Chandler. |
Anonymous
|
We bought a house through Redfin in Silver Spring in 2010. I wouldn't say it was a great experience, but it was a good experience and I will say it was worth it after getting that $8,500 back at closing. We knew the area in which we wanted to buy, had purchased a house before, are very internet-savvy, and didn't need someone to suggest things and lead us around. It was really really easy to find the houses we wanted to look at, click a button for an appointment to go see it and just show up. I'd say that was the best part - the website is great and it was really nice to be able to get an appointment really quickly and with hardly any effort. I've heard some sellers don't like offers from Redfin, but we had no trouble. The sellers chose us out of at least one other offer and everything proceeding quickly and easily after that. I will say that we pretty much had to do everything in terms of finding and scheduling an inspector, deciding what contingencies to put, deciding what to offer, deciding what to counter, deciding what to ask for after the inspection, etc. The agents were pretty much no help on that. So if you don't know what you're doing, you might want to look for someone that will assist you. But I feel like we got a good deal and it all went well. The one thing I really didn't like was that the agent at closing was pretty disrespectful. He arrived 20 minutes late and sat on his Blackberry through the entire closing. The listing agent actually had to help us on a few things since he was so checked out and she was clearly extremely irritated.
So all in all, it went fine, being able to schedule online was awesome, and the cash back was fantastic. But I wouldn't suggest it unless you're ready to do a lot of work yourselves for that money. |
Anonymous
| Great feedback. Thanks. Can you just negotiate to get commission back from a realtor? So if we see say less than five houses get half the commission as a rebate. An do a scale so that if we do end up taking up a ton o time they get full commission. I we do deal quickly they get less. Anyone tried this? |
Anonymous
|
We've tried negotiating with a realtor and got a tiny amount of money back, but the individual realtors have to go back to their bosses to get permission (so ours told us), and even in this terrible market, they wouldn't move much.
We are now using Redfin to look for a house. Love the website, which is the best, best best. It's so easy to compare houses, and they have sales history and assessments right on the site (although it's best to check with the state registry to double check in case the info isn't there, or in some cases has not been updated for some reason on the Redfin site). The only reason I'd use a realor now is for a house that's 1) underpriced and 2) not yet listed. In that case, I'd pay the full commission. Other than that, realtors offer me nothing. I have an inspector, I know my way around sales contracts, and in some cases, I know more than the realtor does. This will be our fifth house purchase. For a beginner, Redfin can be great, I've heard, but it will depend on the agent. Read the reviews on the site, talk directly to the agent and see what you think. For me, it's worth the savings. |
Anonymous
| We bought last year and toyed with using Redfin but never did. I totally regret it. The realtor doesn't offer anything you can't do yourself online. We found the neighborhood, the house, did all the research. I think her main role was in being able to open the lockbox. Seriously, go for it! If/when we buy again we will use Redfin in a heartbeat. |
Anonymous
|
I'm 9:53 and pps bring up a good point. Like I said, we didn't get much help from Redfin on negotiating, but honestly we didn't get much help on it from our regular agent for our first home purchase either and neither did my parents who just bought a house. Plus I never trusted the little help the regular agents gave anyway since it seemed like at that point they only cared about a deal. So maybe we didn't lose any real help by using Redfin anyway...
The other thing that killed me watching my mom buy a house is that the realtor would send her all these suggestions and they were always ones my mom had considered online anyway - Redfin will send you updates that you can customize. So the regular agent was really very little help id you are comfortable with just searching online yourself. |
Anonymous
|
You are an attorney and your parents are retired real estate brokers, OP?
GO FOR IT! I can hardly believe you are even thinking twice about this. We did it, despite having none of your background. Had used regular agents in the past and that had not been a great experience at all! With redfin the process was great, although our search was long. The transaction from offer to closing could not have been better. We won in a multiple offer situation - I think there were 4 offers-, never pressured, received the comps, well advised, smooth, they took care of everything all the way to settlement. In fact, the leg work was finding the house itself, after that, we felt that redfin was actually holding our hands until we got the keys! |
Anonymous
Yes--we did this. And it worked out GREAT. We worked with an agent from a 'known' company and all she had to do was get permission from the main broker. You should know thatagents don' really like working with Redfin agemts. so if you are looking in a competitive market where there are multiple offers using a Redfin agent does hurt your chances of getting the house. And on the flip side, other agents might not want to show your house to their clients if they see its a redfin agent. however, in this day and age with most folks using redfin and frankly mls to find their houses, its not really up to the agent anyway as to which houses to show 
but you should know that you can find agents who will negotiate their commisson with you (but you do have to give on some of the premium services--i.e. you may not get the glossy brochure or the open house every weekend type thign. but you will get standard service. |
Anonymous
| :shrug: we used Redfin in a competitive situation and we still got the house. We used Redfin since we knew our neighborhood and had been watching the market online for years. We loved working with Redfin. |
Anonymous
Question, since you're a realtor-why don't you like working with Redfin agents? |
Anonymous
|
Full fee REALTORS need to get over themselves:
*the market isn't going up 10% each year, *you have to learn how to do math, *comps are not what is listed, it's what has sold, *your 6% all-in fees are cannibalizing your business - not to mention ONE THIRD of a buyer's downpayment money, *the technology out there means your clients are often more informed than you, *many buyers contact the seller directly, don't like the 'realtor noise'. |
Anonymous
| There was an article in the Economist magazine last week about why realtors don't like working with discount websites or buyers directly. It is all about protecting their inflated commissions. The big real estate companies and the state commissions collude to push out any buyers or sellers outside their system. In the US realtors get 6% commission, but the rest of the world is 2 or 3%- even London, Tokyo, etc. The online databases should help buyers and sellers connect without paying the middleman, but the middlemen are doing everything they can to make it as difficult as possible to avoid them. |
Anonymous
|
We worked with one of the big real estate companies around here in Arlington and were able to negotiate 1% rebate of the purchase price at closing. All you have to do is tell them that you will go with one of the discount brokers who will rebate 1.5%. It's a market people and you will get better service from a full service broker on both ends, but it certainly isn't twice as good.
Having dealt with individuals represented by Redfin agents when selling a house I would never do it again if at all possible, i.e now when multiple offers are more common - completely tacky lowball offer (10% off) when the house had been on the market a week. No thank you |
Anonymous
| Pp, the issue was the lowball offer. Not the online realtor. |