Tue 25 Apr 2006
Redfin MapStats
Posted by Marlow Harris under Real Estate
[3] Comments
The press release department of Redfin has been busy lately, announcing its new mapping technology called MapStats.
It rated a story in last week’s Seattle PI by John Cook, a mention on his blog, and an entry in the New York Times Walk-Through .
In checking local MLS statistics, I see that Redfin has had 7 total sales for 2006 (rather than the 8 mentioned in the Seattle P.I.) 2 sales closed in March, the other 5 just in the last few weeks. These 7 sales totaled approximately $3.8 million dollars in sales. Assuming these were “Redfin Direct” sales and the average commission paid was 3% and they refunded 2/3rds of that to the Buyer, the net profit earned by Redfin during this first quarter of 2006 has been approximately $38,180. Redfin lists 4 managers and 5 agents on staff. I assume they also have software engineers and other support staff, but just counting the 9 employees actually listed on the site, that would be about $3426 in earnings each employee, for nearly 4 months of work, from 9 people.
April 25th, 2006 at 10:21 am
Hi Marlow, You are correct that Redfin is venture-financed at this stage, rather than financed by its own operations, but we also generate revenue from listings and from referrals.
The engineers and managers we have hired are to build a national business, so our expenses are well ahead of our costs, but in line with our business plan.
April 25th, 2006 at 10:21 am
P.S. I really like that picture.
April 25th, 2006 at 12:16 pm
Thanks for your insight. It helps to put your business plan into perspective.
The photo is of a sculpture which is titled “Untitled 1986″ which was erected on the 41st anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki and was created by the sculptor John Buckley. The owner of the house is an eccentric American living in Britain, named Bill Heine. I’m not sure of what relevance it had to the article, but it sure looks cool!