Online real estate broker Redfin Corporation today released a new version of www.redfin.com based on the Microsoft Virtual Earth map platform, offering home-buyers powerful new ways to explore a neighborhood. With today's announcement, Redfin also more than doubled its geographic coverage in the Greater Seattle and San Francisco Bay Areas; and added online agent chat and more listing information such as homeowner's dues.

The first to display real estate data on an online map, Redfin originally developed its own mapping technology using government-provided imagery of Seattle and San Francisco. Now that mapping platforms have become publicly available on the Internet, Redfin replaced this technology with Virtual Earth to expand more quickly and to offer a richer user experience. A blog posting on why Redfin chose Virtual Earth over other mapping platforms is available at: http://www.redfin.com/blog/redfin/2007/01/redfin_on_virtual_earth.html.

The integration available today gives Redfin users better performance, double- click zooming, and a choice between aerial imagery and the traditional map view. Redfin plans to use Virtual Earth to offer bird's-eye views of neighborhoods, driving directions, mobile telephone integration and more neighborhood information about local attractions and retail shops.

With the new map, Redfin is expanding from San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Santa Clara and San Mateo counties in California to now serve Napa, Santa Cruz, Solano and Sonoma counties. In Washington, Redfin is expanding eastward to include all of King County as well as Kitsap, Pierce and Snohomish counties. Redfin also has hired new agents in these areas to provide local support for customers using its e-commerce service to buy or sell a house. The expansion increases the number of listings available on Redfin.com by nearly 200 percent and the number of records on past sales by more than 150 percent.

The latest version also includes new features based on direct customer feedback:

• More listing information: listings now include all available details from each multiple listing service such as homeowner's dues, open house information and virtual tours, when available.
• Online agent chat: start an instant message chat with a Redfin agent to get immediate answers while making an offer or starting a new listing (9 a.m. - 6 p.m. PT, Monday through Friday; noon - 6 p.m. PT, Saturday and Sunday).

"The Redfin real estate brokerage site provides precise outlines of every property directly on the Virtual Earth map, demonstrating just how flexible and powerful our platform can be," said Stephen Lawler, general manager of the Virtual Earth Business Unit at Microsoft Corp. "You can zoom in to see how big the yard is or how much waterfront access a property has. We are excited to work with an industry partner that has been such a pioneer in using maps as a way to visualize detailed real estate information."

"By building on Microsoft Virtual Earth, Redfin is leaving the map-platform business to focus on building the industry's most powerful real estate search application, and expanding to major markets across the United States," said Redfin CTO Michael Young. "What matters in real estate is location, location, location, so we chose the map partner with the most aggressive plan for delivering rich imagery of every neighborhood, from street-level to low-level bird's eye aerials to the traditional high-altitude views."

Redfin (www.redfin.com) is the real estate industry's first online brokerage, combining a customer-focused team of real estate agents with online tools for making the process of buying or selling a home easy. Redfin is the only major search site to feature listings direct from broker databases as well as for-sale-by-owner and foreclosure properties from across the Internet. The company pays its agents customer-satisfaction bonuses, not commissions, and surveys every client, publishing each survey as well as details on the agent's negotiating performance and deal history. Redfin's service is available in the metropolitan areas of Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Washington DC, Baltimore, New York's Long Island and Westchester County as well as most of California, including the San Francisco Bay Area, Southern California and Sacramento. To keep track of our daring exploits, subscribe to blog.redfin.com or our Twitter feed @redfin.