By The Tim on August 5th, 2009 at 10:17 AM · 7 Comments
Couple of interesting developments in local real estate search this week.
First up, local discount brokerage Findwell (a Seattle Bubble advertiser) announced today that they are partnering with Estately to provide a more user-friendly search experience. Sounds like it should be a good match for both parties. A good search tool was the one (big) thing that the Findwell site lacked in its competition with Redfin. I think they could attract more people to use it if they put it more prominently on the front page, but this definitely seems like a step in the right direction to me.
Secondly, Seattle’s all-industry real estate blog continues to evolve beyond its pure blogging roots. Yesterday founder Dustin Luther unveiled a newly polished, more commercial site design as well as their very own home search tool. Personally, their new search feels clunkly to me compared to the offerings that have been available for years from Redfin and Estately. With the real estate search market as saturated as it is (especially here in Seattle), I think Dustin’s got a pretty difficult uphill battle on this one.
So what’s your opinion of the Findwell / Estately partnership and Rain City Guide’s new look and search tool?
Categories: News
Tags: Estately, Findwell, Rain City Guide, real estate search
Congratulations to Redfin, who announced today that they are officially profitable: The Naked Truth is Out: Redfin is Profitable
Redfin was profitable last month, all while maintaining our 97% customer satisfaction. The business has been growing by leaps and bounds, in part because the real estate market has had a small rally this summer, but in part because we’ve started to figure out how to prosper in down markets too. What has made the difference for Redfin hasn’t been any one breakthrough that we could have pinned our hopes on, but a combination of small adjustments:
- Giving consumers a choice of agent, and unlimited home tours.
- Publishing agent reviews, which increased demand 36% in a single month.
- Simplifying the agent choices we offer consumers, which increased demand a further 16% in a single month.
- Generating referral revenues from customers in outlying areas that we can’t afford to serve ourselves.
- Figuring out Google optimization, which drove a 300% increase in traffic year over year, though that growth is now slowing.
It’s nice to wonder how much more profitable Redifn can be once the market really recovers. But since real estate is a seasonal business, we’ll have plenty more ups and downs in our fortunes along the way.
TechCrunch has an interesting take on the news: Redfin Turns Profitable, Real Estate Industry Shudders
Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman said his company just turned profitable. Since I was sitting next to him on the panel, I asked him off microphone what revenues were. He said the run rate is around $15 million. 2007 revenues were $5 million, 2006 revenues were $1 million.
That’s great news for everyone except the real estate industry. The Seattle-based startup represents buyers and sellers in home real estate transactions for far less than the entrenched industry rates that take 5%-6% of the sale price of a home and split it between buy and sell brokers.
…
Disruption is never fun for those being disrupted. The DOJ is hitting the real estate industry from one side, and Redfin is hitting them from the other. The result? A better deal for the rest of us.
Indeed. Which is why I would like to take a moment to congratulate Redfin for sticking it out in a tough time and turning out a great service in an industry that sorely needs some healthy competition.
Categories: News
Tags: discount brokers, good news everyone, real estate search, Redfin
Please vote in this poll using the sidebar.
How many properties are on your Redfin / Estately watch list?
- <10 (38%, 40 Votes)
- 10-25 (19%, 20 Votes)
- 26-50 (15%, 16 Votes)
- 51-100 (15%, 16 Votes)
- 101+ (13%, 13 Votes)
Total Voters: 105
This poll will be active and displayed on the sidebar through 05.16.2009.
Categories: Polls
Tags: Estately, Polls, real estate search, Redfin
By The Tim on December 29th, 2008 at 12:33 PM · 6 Comments
I’m happy to announce that Seattle Bubble now sports a new and improved sidebar inventory tracker, thanks to Galen Ward of Estately.com.
A few months ago our most reliable source for the hourly inventory tracker went offline, leaving us with two far less dependable sources for the inventory data. Since then the sidebar inventory tracker has been updated with data from one of these sources since it’s the best we’ve had available.
However, Estately.com has graciously set up an hourly feed just for Seattle Bubble, so we now have a reliable data source once again. The new data from Estately has been added to the inventory log files (click the numbers in the tracker on the sidebar) as a new fourth column.
This is also a good time to remind you of the nifty features sported by Estately’s real estate search technology. Head over to this post for a good roundup of the features of the top two real estate search sites Redfin and Estately. The two are engaged in a constantly-escalating technological arms race that is resulting in ever more options for the real estate searcher.
Also, don’t forget that you can make an account on Estately and add Seattle Bubble as a “friend” to share comments on properties with other Seattle Bubble readers.
Thanks again to Galen and the Estately team. Keep up the great work.
Categories: Features
Tags: Estately, inventory, real estate search
By The Tim on November 21st, 2008 at 10:02 AM · 21 Comments
Locally-based real estate search site Estately kicked their technology up another notch yesterday, with the addition of past home sales information to every listing, as well as the expansion into Chicago and Long Island, New York.
I’ve been consistently impressed with how much Estately founder Galen Ward has been able to do on a shoestring budget with a minimal staff. Especially with the new addition of past sales, Estately’s search technology has been keeping toe to toe with the larger, better-funded Redfin.
Since Redfin and Estately are (IMO) the top two real estate search websites in terms of technological feature sets, here’s a comparison chart of some of the features of each site, to visualize how they compare:
| |
Redfin |
Estately |
| Search by City, Neighborhood, Zip |
X |
X |
| Search raw land |
X |
|
| Keyword Search |
|
X |
| Aerial View, Street View |
X |
X |
| Bird’s Eye view |
X |
|
| Past Sales |
X |
X |
| Days on Market |
X |
X |
| Cumulative DOM |
X |
|
| Mapped Schools, Parks, Transit |
|
X |
| Similar Homes Nearby |
X |
X |
| Neighborhood Stats |
X |
X |
| Shareable Saved Properties List |
|
X |
| Share Notes on Properties |
|
X |
One of the coolest features offered by Estately is probably the shareable saved properties list. Just like Redfin, you can save a list of favorites. But unlike Refin, Estately allows you to share your favorites list with friends, or make the entire list public. For example, here’s mine.
Even more nifty is the ability to share your notes on listings with anyone on your Estately “friends list.” If anyone is interested in sharing notes and favorites with me and other Seattle Bubble readers, you can add Seattle Bubble as a friend here. Once we build up a few friends, you can click on “Other’s Properties” an “Other’s Notes” to see what everyone else is saving and sharing.
Categories: News
Tags: Estately, real estate search, Redfin
By The Tim on November 6th, 2008 at 9:43 AM · 28 Comments
For those of you that have been waiting for Redfin to add the NWMLS Cumulative Days on Market to the information displayed on listings, your wait is over.
Redfin unveiled a bunch of new features today. Here’s a list of what I’ve noticed so far:
- Cumulative Days on Market displayed
- property type now broken down into:
- House
- Condo
- Townhouse
- Multi-family
- Land
- Other
- search filters added for parking
- filter out short sales from results
- include schools on results map
Nice. Redfin is definitely doing an amazing job of constantly improving their web property search experience. Has anybody noticed any other improvements?
[Update: Also definitely worth noting—Google finally added Street View for Seattle, and Redfin is right on top of it, with integrated Street View on the page of each individual listing. Sweet.]
In somewhat related news, as some readers have already noticed, Redfin’s eight market blogs have a new analytical focus, and a new contributor: yours truly. To start I’ll be posting once a week over on the “Sweet Digs” blogs, chart-ifying and commenting on all new sets of data provided exclusively through Redfin for all eight of their service areas across the country.
Swing on by and let us know what you think. It’s not intended to be a replacement or competition to the material provided here on Seattle Bubble, but more of a complimentary resource.
Categories: News
Tags: blogging, real estate search, Redfin
