Frequently Asked Questions

Redfin is the first online real estate brokerage for home-buyers and sellers. Our mission is to use the Internet to give home buyers and sellers more information with less hassle, better service, and new money-saving choices. Our website combines real estate listings with tax records and analytics on an aerial map of cities such as Austin, Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Portland, OR, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco, Sacramento, San Jose, Seattle and Washington, DC. Customers who are ready to buy a home can save money* by using our electronic service to make an offer, with local Redfin agents handling negotiations and closing. We offer a similar service for sellers. In outlying areas where our own agents cannot provide service, we refer customers to partner agents.

* Except in Oregon, where we can't offer a refund.

From a blog post written by Redfin founder David Eraker: "Back in 2004, when Michael Dougherty and I were choosing a name for Redfin, Michael came up with redfin.com and identified that the word was a great empty vessel, short, and an anagram of finder and friend. In contrast, it reminded me of a highly aggressive shark fin. Despite the gap in our word associations, we ended up moving forward and purchasing the domain name."

It's easy! Enter a location such as a city, neighborhood, ZIP code or MLS # in the search bar that appears in the top-left corner of every page on Redfin.com, then click Search Listings. We'll zoom to that location on our map and show you the relevant listings. To filter listings by criteria such as price or square footage, click the search box. This opens a panel of search criteria that you can adjust to filter the properties that Redfin displays on its map. You can also access this panel by clicking the Price, Beds... link to the left of the search box.

Redfin is usually allowed to display a maximum of 500 unclustered results in one query. If your query returns more than 500 results, even when you are zoomed in to the maximum zoom level on the map, try narrowing your search by filtering on criteria such as minimum number of beds/baths, maximum price etc. within the search options box.

In select markets, you can work with a Redfin agent to sell your home. From the way we pay our agents to the honest, see-it-all data we provide, we've created a better way to sell your home. When you work with a Redfin agent, you'll save thousands – without compromising on service. Plus, we'll invest in selling your home with free listing photos & up to $250 in matching funds to make your home sparkle.

In select markets, you can work with a Redfin agent from start to finish to buy a home. Our experienced, local agents can guide you through the home-buying process, help you explore what you can afford and where to look, and then represent you when you make an offer, during negotiations, and throughout the closing process. When you're done, we refund* a portion of our commission back to you so you save thousands -- without compromising on service. You can see as many homes as you like, with no sales pressure; and, during negotiations we'll work hard to get you the best possible price.

In areas where Redfin doesn't employ its own agents, we partner with agents from other brokerages who deliver Redfin-certified service. When you buy a home with a Redfin partner agent, you can be confident that you'll get great service and still save thousands.

*In Oregon, state law prevents us from offering a refund. We can usually apply the credit toward your closing costs and you still save thousands.

Buy with a traditional agent, and that agent will get a commission from the seller, typically worth 2.5% – 3% of the home's purchase price. Buy a home with Redfin, and we'll refund* a portion of that commission right back to you. Since our customers find us through our website, our agents can focus on delivering great customer service for less money. In fact, a typical Redfin customer saves thousands on a home purchase. Learn more about buying with Redfin.

If you're selling a home with a Redfin agent, you simply pay less in fees. When you sell with a Redfin agent, you pay up to half the standard seller's agent fee (with a minimum fee of $4,500-5,500, depending on location). While you still have to pay the typical commission to the buyer's agent, your total brokerage fee with Redfin is reduced because our seller fee is less. Learn more about selling with Redfin.

*Except in Oregon, where state law prevents us from offering a refund. We can usually apply the full refund amount as a credit toward your closing costs.

My Redfin allows you to mark listings from the map and monitor their status via a My Redfin web pages. You can save personal notes to help you keep track of properties. You can also use saved searches to get daily email updates with new listings that meet your criteria. Redfin sends an email message every morning that includes updates on saved search results. To stop these emails, you can turn off saved-search notification or just click unsubscribe at the bottom of the email notification.

Long Island, New York MLS rules require that you have a registered Redfin account with a verified email address to be able to view the addresses of many homes for sale. This is because the agents that enter listings into the Long Island MLS may not allow them to be displayed to the public. Registration on our site is free and we'll never spam you. Once you sign up, we'll send you a welcome email with a link to verify your email address. You can then return to your search and see all the addresses.

There are three ways to get you real estate questions answered:

• Take one of our local home-buying classes.
• Visit Redfin Forums, our online message board for real estate do-it-yourselfers.
• Contact one of our Redfin agents: their email address and telephone number are available on their profile pages.

Nothing. Redfin offers registration only to support personalization, not as a lead-generation mechanism for our business or for our partners. Redfin does not send registrants solicitations from Redfin or its partners, and it does not share registrant details with any third parties. Occasionally, we will send selected users a customer satisfaction survey or ask for opinions on new features; you can opt out of all future surveys by replying to the survey email with REMOVE in the subject line.

To unsubscribe from Redfin Listing Updates either click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email or follow these steps:

1. Click My Redfin
2. Select Saved Searches.
3. For each saved search, set notifications to "Never."

You can change your account's email address, password, forums username & photo, and update your subscriptions to our announcements on your account settings page. If you have any problems, just send an email to Redfin Techsupport and we'll help you out.

If you'd like to delete your account with Redfin, just send an email to Redfin TechSupport to let us know and we'll make sure your information is erased from our database.

1. Sign out of Redfin by clicking Sign Out at the top right of the page.
2. Click Forgot your password? below the Password field in the "Already A User?" section.
3. Enter your email address and click "Submit."
4. Check your email for a message with a link to a form that resets your password.

If you already have a Facebook account, you can now use it to sign in to Redfin. It's faster and easier, plus it will let you see which of your other friends has joined the Redfin crowd. To do this, we collect your basic publicly-viewable Facebook information, as well as your Facebook email address, and permission to post to your Wall. We'll also give you the option to use your public Facebook photo as your profile photo on our website.

As we develop our Facebook integration, we'll continue to roll out new features. We'll keep you posted.

If you have specific privacy concerns, check out our Privacy Policy. You can also check out our Terms of Use, as well as Facebook's Terms of Use.

You can change or delete your photo on your account settings page.

We use your photo in your My Redfin account, and also display it with your forum posts. If you leave a review about a Redfin agent, we'll also ask your permission to display your photo with your review.

You can upload a JPG or PNG image file for your profile photo. Please make sure that you or one of your family members is clearly shown in the photo. Please do not upload cartoons, photos of unrelated items or people, or photos for which you do not own the copyright. Offensive or explicit photos are not acceptable.

You can also opt to use your public Facebook photo on our website, as long as it meets the guidelines listed above.

Please upload only photos that are 5 MB or less. As long as your photo is 5 MB or less, we can resize it as needed to display with your profile, forum posts, and reviews.

David Eraker founded Redfin in October 2002. The company launched its real estate search site for Seattle in October 2004. After years of bootstrap operations, the company raised its first venture capital in September 2005. We first launched our home-buying service in February 2006.

Redfin makes money today in one of three ways:

• When customers make an offer on a home using Redfin, we earn a commission as their broker. We return a portion of our commission to the customer*, and retain the remainder for our services.
• For customers listing their home to sell, Redfin's listing service rate is 1.5% of the final sale price (with a minimum fee of $4,500-$5,500, depending on location). There is no upfront fee; only if the home sells.
• When customers close a transaction with a Redfin partner agent, we earn a referral fee of up to 30% of the agent's commission. We make sure our partners always earn at least $2,500 so that they provide every client quality service regardless of price range. We also reduce the referral fee paid to us if they have a minimum star-rating of 4.75 from Redfin customer surveys and a minimum of 5 closed Redfin transactions over the previous 12 month period to reward agents with exemplary customer service.
• When Redfin customers shop for mortgage quotes on Zillow Mortgage Marketplace, Zillow charges a fee to each lender the customer contacts in response to a mortgage quote. Zillow shares a portion of that fee with Redfin.

*In Oregon, state law prevents us from offering a refund. We can usually apply the full refund amount as a credit towards closing costs.

We love to hear feedback from our customers, which you can submit through our message boards at Redfin Forums or by emailing us. Executives, agents and product managers monitor both forums and email to understand how we can improve our business. Anyone who sends a solicitation via either method will be ignored.

Redfin has been funded through the investments of our employees, contractors, angel investors and several venture capitalists, including Madrona Venture Group, Greylock Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Vulcan Capital, Brand Equity Ventures, and Globespan Capital Partners.

Redfin offers our local service in ten states and Washington, DC. The states we serve are Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Nevada, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, and Washington. In areas currently beyond the reach of our agents, Redfin partners with other high-performing, service-minded real estate agents to expand our ability to bring Redfin's customer service-focused approach to even more areas. In each state, Redfin service is available for the following counties:

You can sign up to receive an email from us when we expand to your area. We won't spam you, ever.

You may receive duplicate listings in your Redfin Listing Updates email if you are receiving updates from more than one saved search. This is because we display the results from each search separately and there may be overlap between your searches.

You may not receive a Redfin Listing Updates email every day because there are no updates for a given day.