How many years until realtors are replaced by Redfin/Uber/Zillow/etc?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Listing agents do a lot more than "merely listingg the property and attaching a lock box to the place." That's like saying doctors merely take your vital signs, or journalists merely write a story, or tax accountants merely file tax returns.

Stop comparing yourselves to doctors and lawyers. They study hard to get where they are. You took a week long class.

I'm not a Realtor, but I would love to see you pass the exam after just a week of classes.

I'd be happy to oblige if you put up a $10k wager.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Listing agents do a lot more than "merely listingg the property and attaching a lock box to the place." That's like saying doctors merely take your vital signs, or journalists merely write a story, or tax accountants merely file tax returns.

Stop comparing yourselves to doctors and lawyers. They study hard to get where they are. You took a week long class.

I'm not a Realtor, but I would love to see you pass the exam after just a week of classes.

I'd be happy to oblige if you put up a $10k wager.

Absolutely. Tell me the logistics of this. Can we put it in escrow somewhere?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Listing agents do a lot more than "merely listingg the property and attaching a lock box to the place." That's like saying doctors merely take your vital signs, or journalists merely write a story, or tax accountants merely file tax returns.

Stop comparing yourselves to doctors and lawyers. They study hard to get where they are. You took a week long class.

I'm not a Realtor, but I would love to see you pass the exam after just a week of classes.

I'd be happy to oblige if you put up a $10k wager.

Absolutely. Tell me the logistics of this. Can we put it in escrow somewhere?

Escrow would be the smart thing for us to do. I haven't found any leading reputable sites for it. Have you?

DPOR site says exam application processing takes up to 2 weeks so that may be a logistical issue for us. Class is already 60 hours worth of time so it could take about 3 weeks total which violates our intended terms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah count me in the camp who think realtors are overpaid, not all of them though.

Listing agents, yes.

Buyer's agents, maybe, but not necessarily. When I bought my place in DC, we probably toured dozens of houses, put in 3 offers, 2 of which fell through. The final transaction was a ginormous pain in the ass as the seller was a greedy flipper. I felt that my buyer's agent earned her commission.

If I were to sell my place though, I don't think a listing agent should be pocketing $15K for merely listing the property and attaching a lock box to the place. Maybe $2-3K for listing, pictures and lock box seem more appropriate.

Listing agents do a lot more than "merely listingg the property and attaching a lock box to the place." That's like saying doctors merely take your vital signs, or journalists merely write a story, or tax accountants merely file tax returns.

Hello realtor,

In the best case scenario, you are paying listing agents for their expertise on pricing and also their negotiation skills. But 1. there's this thing called the internet so you can figure out what the appropriate list price yourself and 2. agents are incentivized to get you to list/sell your house at a low a price as possible so most of them are worthless on negotiations.

Again, I'm not a Realtor. And your reflexive accusation of everyone who disagrees iwith you is a Realtor is really tiresome. I don't need a hidden agenda to expose you as an idiot.

Calling me an idiot doesn't negate/invalidate the statements I made. You didn't have a rebuttal so your reflexive move was to attack me. It makes YOU look like an idiot.

[Anonymous]

the real estate market will be disrupted one way or another. My guess is < 5 years.

[Anonymous]

Redfin agent here. The whole goal of Redfin is to put the consumer's best interest first. Yes we refund part of the broker's commission and agents are paid a salary but the bulk of our pay comes from bonuses that are directly influenced by customer's responses to a one question survey after closing, if a customer is unsatisfied or even just marginally satisfied it has a huge impact on our pay. We are also paid to tour with our clients which is meant to make our clients never feel like they can't reach out to us, that and it seem to curtail much of the pressure to sell sell sell. The average Redfin agent in California is closing on average about 36 deals a year, top agents are around 60, anywhere between 3-9 times many as the average agent depending on what numbers you look at which completely shatters the argument our competing traditional agents try to argue which is that we are not experienced. A lot of these "old boys club" types sell their 6 properties a year and have been doing it for 20 years, a Redfin agent is hitting the same number in roughly 3 years. I always use the analogy of that surgeon who is a couple years away from retiring, been doing it for 30 years and uses the same techniques as when Eisenhower was President once every other month compared to the guy using the lasers and robot arms doing a surgery every week who doesn't have the shakes. We have to be far more efficient because we are doing far more business. Our agents also specialize in either the buy side or listing side, so while traditional agent X closed 4 buy side transactions and 2 listings a Redfin agent closed 30 buy side transactions, furthering the gap between the two models. An independent survey shows that we score 22 points higher than traditional agents in customer satisfaction. Our list side charges 4% commission compared to the 5-6% through much of the country. Our listings get twice as many views as listings with other brokerages on the internet which many of you have argued is why you don't need an agent, well if one agent could give you twice the views on your home would you use them? Our website gets it's information directly from local MLS services and updates every 15 minutes, the only other site that can make this claim is realtor.com.

There's a few reasons we've been slow to grow, for one we simply did not cover much of the country until fairly recently, we now cover somewhere north of 80% of the US population, name recognition and public education of our product is by far our biggest hurdle. Secondly, we have done almost no marketing or advertising of any kind, the instances when we did we couldn't keep up with demand. We've stuck to social media, word of mouth and constantly working on the website making it as attractive as possible as a search option for consumers, the website probably accounts for 90%+ of all of our business if I had to guess. Third, we still get a lot of push back from traditional agents, they like to brand us as a discount brokerage which connotes that we are not a full service brokerage. Not only is that not true I feel that we offer way more services and also better technology compared to the traditional brokerage all the while giving the client back some money. Reason enough for a traditional agent to trash Redfin. Hell my own father who has been a traditional agent for 25+ years almost disowned me when he heard I went to work for Redfin.

I'd be happy to answer any other questions.

[Anonymous]

^ do you have any personal accounts of old school agents boycotting you?

[Anonymous]

A home purchase is a big, complicated, and risky undertaking for the average consumer. It soaks up lots of their income and assets, there are weird requirements for title insurance, recordings, escrow and taxes, and there are risks of buying in the wrong place or buying a property that will be unsuitable in the long term. So the average consumer wants some guidance and hand-holding.

I think that realtors won't go away until there is a universal, all-in-one, safe platform for home purchases that is reasonably priced. Where all bid forms, sales contracts, etc. are standard and simplified down for the average joe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^ do you have any personal accounts of old school agents boycotting you?

I would also be interested to know the answer to this. Do traditional buyers agents sometimes not show buyers homes listed by Redfin? I posted this question earlier in this thread and it was mysteriously deleted, which makes me wonder if my question hit a nerve.... Let's see if this post and the PP are also deleted by big brother.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ do you have any personal accounts of old school agents boycotting you?

I would also be interested to know the answer to this. Do traditional buyers agents sometimes not show buyers homes listed by Redfin? I posted this question earlier in this thread and it was mysteriously deleted, which makes me wonder if my question hit a nerve.... Let's see if this post and the PP are also deleted by big brother.

I am not this redfin agent but we listed with Redfin and our agent knew, on a personal level, nearly every agent who brought a potential buyer for a showing. So I don't know if some traditionsl agents are snubbing Redfin, but our agent had clearly cultivated working relationships with a number of local agents.

I also hope that, regardless of the agent, most buyers would search on their own and seriously call out their agent if they "missed" a home that met their criteria.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah count me in the camp who think realtors are overpaid, not all of them though.

Listing agents, yes.

Buyer's agents, maybe, but not necessarily. When I bought my place in DC, we probably toured dozens of houses, put in 3 offers, 2 of which fell through. The final transaction was a ginormous pain in the ass as the seller was a greedy flipper. I felt that my buyer's agent earned her commission.

If I were to sell my place though, I don't think a listing agent should be pocketing $15K for merely listing the property and attaching a lock box to the place. Maybe $2-3K for listing, pictures and lock box seem more appropriate.

Listing agents do a lot more than "merely listingg the property and attaching a lock box to the place." That's like saying doctors merely take your vital signs, or journalists merely write a story, or tax accountants merely file tax returns.

Hello realtor,

In the best case scenario, you are paying listing agents for their expertise on pricing and also their negotiation skills. But 1. there's this thing called the internet so you can figure out what the appropriate list price yourself and 2. agents are incentivized to get you to list/sell your house at a low a price as possible so most of them are worthless on negotiations.

Again, I'm not a Realtor. And your reflexive accusation of everyone who disagrees iwith you is a Realtor is really tiresome. I don't need a hidden agenda to expose you as an idiot.

Calling me an idiot doesn't negate/invalidate the statements I made. You didn't have a rebuttal so your reflexive move was to attack me. It makes YOU look like an idiot.

No, actually, I summarily dismantled your sorry excuse for an argument. You just keep prattling on non-sensically. Whatever. You are dismissed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Listing agents do a lot more than "merely listingg the property and attaching a lock box to the place." That's like saying doctors merely take your vital signs, or journalists merely write a story, or tax accountants merely file tax returns.

Stop comparing yourselves to doctors and lawyers. They study hard to get where they are. You took a week long class.

I'm not a Realtor, but I would love to see you pass the exam after just a week of classes.

I'd be happy to oblige if you put up a $10k wager.

Absolutely. Tell me the logistics of this. Can we put it in escrow somewhere?

Escrow would be the smart thing for us to do. I haven't found any leading reputable sites for it. Have you?

DPOR site says exam application processing takes up to 2 weeks so that may be a logistical issue for us. Class is already 60 hours worth of time so it could take about 3 weeks total which violates our intended terms.

You said you could pass it after "just a week of classes." That's the deal. Escrow.com would hold money in escrow, but it sounds like you're already changing the terms. You want to do the full study/course, I'm sure you COULD pass it -- the passage rate is about 20% for a first-time taker, so it's not outside the realm of possiblity.

But, you said you could do it after a week of review... Of course, you've since discovered that you can't actually TAKE the exam without completing the formal class. So, you've merely confirmed my point that you don't have the first clue about what you're talking about.

Which is a shame, because I could use your $10,000.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Listing agents do a lot more than "merely listingg the property and attaching a lock box to the place." That's like saying doctors merely take your vital signs, or journalists merely write a story, or tax accountants merely file tax returns.

Stop comparing yourselves to doctors and lawyers. They study hard to get where they are. You took a week long class.

I'm not a Realtor, but I would love to see you pass the exam after just a week of classes.

I'd be happy to oblige if you put up a $10k wager.

Absolutely. Tell me the logistics of this. Can we put it in escrow somewhere?

Escrow would be the smart thing for us to do. I haven't found any leading reputable sites for it. Have you?

DPOR site says exam application processing takes up to 2 weeks so that may be a logistical issue for us. Class is already 60 hours worth of time so it could take about 3 weeks total which violates our intended terms.

You said you could pass it after "just a week of classes." That's the deal. Escrow.com would hold money in escrow, but it sounds like you're already changing the terms. You want to do the full study/course, I'm sure you COULD pass it -- the passage rate is about 20% for a first-time taker, so it's not outside the realm of possiblity.

But, you said you could do it after a week of review... Of course, you've since discovered that you can't actually TAKE the exam without completing the formal class. So, you've merely confirmed my point that you don't have the first clue about what you're talking about.

Which is a shame, because I could use your $10,000.

The test can't be that hard because there are certainly a ton of real estate agents out there! If it is as difficult as you claim...well that's silly and a waste of time. What on earth are they asking you on the exam that's so challenging and you need to know for selling real estate in DC? After all you aren't a lawyer. You're a sales person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Listing agents do a lot more than "merely listingg the property and attaching a lock box to the place." That's like saying doctors merely take your vital signs, or journalists merely write a story, or tax accountants merely file tax returns.

Stop comparing yourselves to doctors and lawyers. They study hard to get where they are. You took a week long class.

I'm not a Realtor, but I would love to see you pass the exam after just a week of classes.

I'd be happy to oblige if you put up a $10k wager.

Absolutely. Tell me the logistics of this. Can we put it in escrow somewhere?

Escrow would be the smart thing for us to do. I haven't found any leading reputable sites for it. Have you?

DPOR site says exam application processing takes up to 2 weeks so that may be a logistical issue for us. Class is already 60 hours worth of time so it could take about 3 weeks total which violates our intended terms.

You said you could pass it after "just a week of classes." That's the deal. Escrow.com would hold money in escrow, but it sounds like you're already changing the terms. You want to do the full study/course, I'm sure you COULD pass it -- the passage rate is about 20% for a first-time taker, so it's not outside the realm of possiblity.

But, you said you could do it after a week of review... Of course, you've since discovered that you can't actually TAKE the exam without completing the formal class. So, you've merely confirmed my point that you don't have the first clue about what you're talking about.

Which is a shame, because I could use your $10,000.

I'm not the pp but the point remains. You're not a surgeon and you are likely overpaid. Your training is less than a semester of schooling and yet you believe you should be compensated like someone with a specialized degree.

I have a friend who is an agent who deserves every single cent they earn. I also know some people who go into real estate, after having failed at everything else including community college. I have bought and sold 4 properties in my lifetime and in each instance but one, the agent attempted to screw me out of thousands of dollars for their own personal gain.

People are getting smart. Redfin is not the only agency that rebates commissions. The last 3 listings in my unit were listed by non redfin agents who agreed to accept 1% commission.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Listing agents do a lot more than "merely listingg the property and attaching a lock box to the place." That's like saying doctors merely take your vital signs, or journalists merely write a story, or tax accountants merely file tax returns.

Stop comparing yourselves to doctors and lawyers. They study hard to get where they are. You took a week long class.

I'm not a Realtor, but I would love to see you pass the exam after just a week of classes.

I'd be happy to oblige if you put up a $10k wager.

Absolutely. Tell me the logistics of this. Can we put it in escrow somewhere?

Escrow would be the smart thing for us to do. I haven't found any leading reputable sites for it. Have you?

DPOR site says exam application processing takes up to 2 weeks so that may be a logistical issue for us. Class is already 60 hours worth of time so it could take about 3 weeks total which violates our intended terms.

You said you could pass it after "just a week of classes." That's the deal. Escrow.com would hold money in escrow, but it sounds like you're already changing the terms. You want to do the full study/course, I'm sure you COULD pass it -- the passage rate is about 20% for a first-time taker, so it's not outside the realm of possiblity.

But, you said you could do it after a week of review... Of course, you've since discovered that you can't actually TAKE the exam without completing the formal class. So, you've merely confirmed my point that you don't have the first clue about what you're talking about.

Which is a shame, because I could use your $10,000.

It's still "just a week of classes" so if you're okay with only that stipulation then let's proceed.