We’re considering listing our home here soon and moving to north Idaho.

Redfin fees are 1.5% vs. the standard 3% that other realtors charge, and that really adds up.

Has anyone sold with Redfin before or does anyone have any insight into the pros and cons?

No experience with them, but realtors generally charge 6% around here so I thin k I'm going to list a house I'm selling on Zillow and a few other free sights.

Remember, you still have to pay the 3% for the buyer's agent commission. For a $600K home, you are saving $9K w/ Redf. For that add'l $9K, your realtor will market it on social media, drum up interest, setup open house, stage it etc., no matter how long it takes. If you have time for all that, go for it. If not, a good realtor is the key to get top dollar. You're in Seattle area which I've heard is red hot.

Neighbor just sold his place in one week on there. Didn't make it to the open house. I assume he got his asking price or better.

If you live in an area where homes are on the market for a short time I would definitely consider it.

If homes are hard to sell where you are or you have something that needs a special touch to get the right price finds a good local realtor.

If you are selling, be aware your rep or team may not be particularly responsive to communications from a potential buyer. The seller of the house we are currently in used Redfin, and on a number of occasions we had fairly critical questions that needed to be answered or issues to be worked out. On at least two occasions, they came really close to losing the deal because we simply could not get a hold of anybody to address our questions for a significant period of time.

My significant other is a Relator so I'm biased. But I also hope to offer somethings to consider.

Consumer Affairs rates Redfin at 2 out of 5 stars, 40%

Here is another independent review of Redfin by Bigger Pockets

Here is an article from Mustard Seed Money out of Seattle. Redfin Vs. Traditional Agent: A Tale of Caution


If you want my personal/independent take on things here it is. Note: this is not my SO speaking, it is my personal point of view from talking with several agents and the reading I've done.

1.5% is just a Redfin marketing come-on, end of Story.

Redfin charges 1.5% for a listing fee, aka the seller's Fee. However, there are many more fees you will still have to pay.
One thing to note for sure! If you don't use Redfin to buy a home as well the 1.5% fee goes up!

You still have to pay the Buyer's Agent's fee, which is 2.5% in Oregon, Washington is probably similar. So you are right back at 4.5% to 5%. It is all in the fine print. The seller pays all of the commissions, not the buyer.


The Redfin agent is paid a salary regardless of if they sell your home or not. So there is no incentive for them to do the real work of actually selling your home.

- Do you want marketing? Redfin will put a sign out in front of the house.
- Redfin will do a basic listing in MLRS, but little else. You still have to pay the MLRS listing fee, which is not included in the 1.5%
- Open house? Yes, redfin might hold 1, but that is going to be about it. You will have to hound them for any additional ones.
- Staging your home, nope
- Photos of your home, maybe a few with their cell phone.
- Virtual tours, nope probably not.

All the things that a traditional agent will do for their fraction of the total fees and commissions on the sale are all line item add-ons for Redfin.

For a non-redfin listing, the 1.5% listing fee is going to the listing Agency. The relator that you work with, he/she only gets a part of it.

Getting people to see your house? All the other realtors from other agencies are not even going to include your home on the list of homes they present to their clients. Why? Because they all dislike working with Redfin and what Redfin is trying to do to the real estate market. It is usually the non-Redfin agent who does all of the work. Plus they feel that Redfin is killing them with their marketing come-on.


Good real estate agents work their tail off trying to sell your home. They want to establish a lifetime relationship with you and have you refer them to your friends and family.

If you want a referral my significant other will research agents in your hometown. She'll look at how well they are doing, the area of your town they most frequently serve, their ratings etc... all the things that are available to find out about the agents serving your market. I will send you an email with their information. It won't cost you a thing for my SO to recommend some agents to you. And, you have no obligation to use them. Most agents will give you a listing presentation and maybe a CMA Comparative Market Analysis in that presentation. They will also give you line item details on the fees.

My email is in my profile, send me a note and I'll get things going on finding you some agents to interview. Be sure to interview a few agents, you'll see differences in their style and will find one that best fits your expectations.

-S

You get what you pay for. I always thought realtor fees are exorbitant. Now that I’m engaged to a realtor I have learned quite a bit. Just about everyone that tries to save a buck on realtor fees ends up making less than they would on the sale of their home. It’s not always like that but for the most part it is.

ETA; Redfin is like Walmart realty. You are getting corporate service not individual service. For example my fiancé drops $600 in pro photos to list a home. I doubt Redfin does that. They likely use a lot of newbie agents in training.

Thanks for all of the insight here guys.

A house was listed in my neighborhood (just a few house up from me) just this past Sunday and it went pending yesterday — sold in four days. Pretty crazy.

quote:

Originally posted by frayedends:
You get what you pay for. I always thought realtor fees are exorbitant. Now that I’m engaged to a realtor I have learned quite a bit. Just about everyone that tries to save a buck on realtor fees ends up making less than they would on the sale of their home. It’s not always like that but for the most part it is.

ETA; Redfin is like Walmart realty. You are getting corporate service not individual service. For example my fiancé drops $600 in pro photos to list a home. I doubt Redfin does that. They likely use a lot of newbie agents in training.

This, 4 years ago a neighbor 4 doors had his house advertised for $685k and had a FSBO sign in front of his house as well as had it on the MLS and Realtor.com...….he had the sign out for at least 6 months.....nothing.....he listed it with a realtor and it sold that month for $750k, realtors do generally bring more money.

My wife and I own a real estate brokerage, in addition to our regular jobs.

We consider ourselves a very high touch brokerage, and my wife and I bring a lot to the table with regards to our professional backgrounds.

I will tell you that getting the house listed and marketed is only about a quarter of the work. The real work comes as offers are negotiated, then the particulars of escrow are hammered out, then working towards a successful close while jumping over the hurdles of inspection, repair, loan, and emotional people.

Shit goes wrong ***all the damn time***. Half of all people are worse at their job than the average person would be doing that job. That means that there's a 50% chance that the escrow team sucks, the loan team sucks, the home inspector sucks, the appraiser sucks, the other agent sucks, and that even the buyers are idiots.

Now, think about the Redfin model. Agents work for Redfin. Redfin gives the Agent leads, the Agent makes a smaller commission, but tries to make it up on volume. Best case scenario, you get a competent Agent that's stretched too thin to fix all the problems that pop up. Or, you might get an Agent who isn't skilled enough to generate his or her own business and has to go work for Redfin.

quote:

Shit goes wrong ***all the damn time***. Half of all people are worse at their job than the average person would be doing that job. That means that there's a 50% chance that the escrow team sucks, the loan team sucks, the home inspector sucks, the appraiser sucks, the other agent sucks, and that even the buyers are idiots.

Spot on. My fiancé spends most of her time on the phone or in people's office trying to put out fires and fix stuff. I"m amazed at how much she had to know about financing, appraisals, inspectors, etc. Financing especially gets complicated with VA and USAA.

Aeteocles and frayedends speak the truth. My wife is a Realtor, has been for 15 years. The process of buying or selling a house has many moving parts. A good Realtor identifies all those parts and advises the buyer and seller on the who, what, when etc. Shit still goes wrong and there are last minute scrambles, a good Realtor knows how to fix it so the closing happens on schedule.

I am in IT, part of my expertise is Business Continuity. Often the question is asked, why do I need all this extra kit, can't we eliminate it? The answer is yes, if you can guarantee everything will be 100% good. Same with buying or selling real estate, if everything goes 100% good, you could go for the discount broker.

I’d skip them personally.

If the market is hot sell on your own. We’ve done it twice, though I have real estate sales and appraisal experience and my wife used to be a mortgage loan officer so we had a head start...but in the end it would not have mattered much based on what actually transpired (assuming you price it fairly) If you have a strong opinionated “style” you may want to leave it to someone else if you can’t keep it in check while dealing with some quirky potential buyers ( I have low tolerance for BS) What you don’t want to do is overprice the property, have it fail to sell in a reasonable amount of time and THEN list with a Realtor. Folks will see that it did not sell previously and the takes away from some of the “shine”- sometimes drastically.

If the market is not fully a strong sellers market consider using an established/successful full time Realtor who is able to show your house pretty much on demand and artfully handle potential buyer objections and smooth out issues. Other potential failure points can be using a friend or relative...proceed with caution as they are not always the best fit when comes down to difficult situations.

If in doubt, I’d go with a Realtor all the way as it really could pay for itself. Despite our backgrounds we used a Realtor on our last move and it was worth every penny. USAA totally effed up our mortgage/closing (on the day of closing no less) and it took the expertise of many to save the deal. We also had to negotiate on some repair items with the new house and our guy kicked ass on the negotiation side.

Good luck either way!

The unholy Triumvirate of home selling - The Realtor - The Appraiser - The Mortgage Broker.

They all scratch each others back like the mafia.

In a sellers market, you don't need 'em. I've done it twice and made a load of cash. It's simple math, even with a slightly lower selling price sometimes.

Good luck.

quote:

Originally posted by Aeteocles:

I will tell you that getting the house listed and marketed is only about a quarter of the work. The real work comes as offers are negotiated, then the particulars of escrow are hammered out, then working towards a successful close while jumping over the hurdles of inspection, repair, loan, and emotional people...

I agree. My wife and I always used a top realtor for selling and buying. We interview them, get references, etc. Both the houses we sold in the past went way over asking, and it was not merely the house itself that did that. Every single realtor we have used were worth their weight in gold.

quote:

Originally posted by frayedends:
You get what you pay for.

This is often said, but not really accurate. A more accurate statement would be, “You don’t always get what you pay for, but you very rarely get what you don’t pay for.”

I don't personally think its worth selling with Redfin because the agents make a small set-rate fee. They are less motivated and typically try to get you to set your price to their verbal approximate appraisal and not an actual one. This way they can price your home about $15,000 less than what other realtors would, thus making a dirty quick sale. I've heard this song and dance over and over again. Its definitely worth getting a highly rated brokerage on board. Imagine saying $6500 in commission fees but losing $15,000 in sale price. Pretty silly huh?

Be aware that realtors will deal. We sold our Montana home last year for 4%.

quote:

Originally posted by labradoodle:
I don't personally think its worth selling with Redfin because the agents make a small set-rate fee. They are less motivated and typically try to get you to set your price to their verbal approximate appraisal and not an actual one. This way they can price your home about $15,000 less than what other realtors would, thus making a dirty quick sale. I've heard this song and dance over and over again. Its definitely worth getting a highly rated brokerage on board. Imagine saying $6500 in commission fees but losing $15,000 in sale price. Pretty silly huh?

Why, pray tell, did you resurrect a three year old thread? And in your first post?