Is this good or bad?

In Boston, the top 10 firms throughout the entire city had sales of between $100 million and $215 million (spread out pretty evenly, in between).

I guess the question raised is (or, has been), how can they pay their programmers if they’ve only collected $900,000 in commissions during the year, and are paying their real estate agents $70,000 annually.

Well, the short answer to that is two-fold: 1) did any of us make any money our first year in real estate or in any new business venture? (I would assume, no); and, 2) that’s why they’ve got venture cap money, to keep them from eating macaroni and cheese 24/7.

If Redfin is not profitable it would not make little sense to expand—I think that may be disinformation, useful in the art of war.

The average length of experience for a Zip agent is 2 years. After that the good ones move on to become full commissioned Realtors or drop out of the business.

We like to say that Zip Realty is fine for those who want to be a guinea pig for a newbie agent. They receive barely any training and are stymied by questions like “What are by-laws?” (Answer according to one Zip agent: “Uh, I guess it means ‘by the law. . .’)

In slower markets, Zip sellers suffer from lack of showings because traditional buyers’ agents would rather show a house listed by someone with more expertise. In a hotter market, Zip buyers suffer from a lack of guidance in handling multiple offers.

That being said, Zip has hung on, mostly by adapting its business model over time from salaried to bonus-only agents and taking away their perks like company cars.

As for the rebel buyer or selelr who wants to supposedly ‘think out of the box?’ I think I’ll pass on those kinds of clients– they are more often’lookers’ instead of buyers, and have a quality of arrogance I find difficult to stomach.

There– my two cents. Cool site, BTW. Liked your tips on how to bid in a competitive situation– important info for us here in San Francisco right now!

I approached their site (the only shop they’ve got) and I hated it. It would not let me change out of the “San Francisco” area. I tried–wouldn’t work for me. I then did a home search on my local zip code in Detroit, still put me back into San Francisco. I’m pretty computer savvy and it frustrated me real quick.

Redfin already has a mortgage lending division. They were advertising for mortgage lending employees months ago and their mortgage affiliated business arrangement is up and running. Although I’m fairly certain it would not be the profit center for the whole company. The premise is the same: Transparency to the consumer. There is no place to hide extra profits for a mortgage broker. All fees if you’re a mortgage broker, have to be disclosed on the Good Faith Estimate and corresponding HUD 1 Settlement Statement.

Hi Darla,

We would then see how the invisible hand of the market deals with Redfin. If a company doesn’t treat customers well, the company will not be able to grow.