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Redfin investor hires Windermere to sell home
Posted by Marlow Harris under Real Estate
[6] Comments
Matt McIlwain is a managing director at Seattle-based Madrona Venture Group, venture capital investors in Redfin. In an article by Jeanne Lang Jones in the Puget Sound Business Journal (Nov. 10, 2006), Jones reports that Matt McIlwains used Seattle’s Redfin to buy their new home, but turned to Windermere Realtor Barbara Shikiar to sell their old home.
“When the consumer is more online savvy and can do their own research, a site like Redfin can lower the cost on the buyer agent’s side,” McIlwain said. Despite multiple offers on the home they wanted, Redfin helped them win the bidding.
“They did a terrific job,” he said.
But faced with the prospect of two mortgage payments, the McIlwains hired Shikiar because her “deep experience” in their neighborhood could help them set the right price on their house and get the word out quickly that it was for sale.
There’s no substitute for experience, said Shikiar, a 28-year veteran Realtor.
The home was under contract for sale in a week.
6 Responses to “ Redfin investor hires Windermere to sell home ”
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Isn’t that like the truck driver for Pepsi being snapped drinking coke?
Yeah, sort of. I wrote about that incident last summer in “Ironic Real Estate”: http://360digest.com/2006/06/09/ironic-real-estate/
You can’t really blame these folks. It seems like they feel they got the best of both worlds.
A chunk of cash back for purchasing through RedFin… and a quick sale for listing with Windermere.
I’m not sure about how much experience it takes to win a bidding war, however. Anyway, this couple seems to be happy with their transaction, which is more than a lot of people can say nowadays…
I am curious… does Redfin have their “clients” call listing agents with some lame excuse about why their agent can’t show a property?
We’re starting to get a lot of that action around these parts, lately…
Actually, this incident doesn’t surprise me. Redfin is very much of a buyer’s broker right now, and their offering on the sell side isn’t very refined yet.