Press Release

Redfin Releases Dashboard for Listing Customers to Monitor Neighborhood Pricing and Traffic Trends

New Release of Website Also Maps Open Houses, Includes Property Valuations from Cyberhomes

SEATTLE - Mar. 4, 2008: 

Online real estate broker Redfin Corporation today released Redfin Listing Metrics, a dashboard for Redfin's listing customers to analyze neighborhood inventory trends and recent sales, and to compare their listing's online traffic to that of other listings in the neighborhood.

With this release, Redfin is also displaying open house information in its map-driven search experience, offering consumers new ways to subscribe to listings, and incorporating a third home-valuation estimate, from Cyberhomes.

Redfin's efforts to provide data-driven guidance to its listing customers is part of a larger Real Estate Scientist campaign to develop selling and buying best practices based on local, up-to-the-minute market information.

The Listing Metrics dashboard, currently available only to Redfin listing customers, graphs how key marketing and pricing trends change day to day and week to week:

  • Online traffic to the listing on Redfin.com as compared to the neighborhood average, so Redfin customers can determine if their listing is competing for online buyers' attention;
  • Sources of online traffic to the listing on Redfin.com, so Redfin sellers can evaluate the effectiveness of promoting their listing on other sites;
  • The number of competing broker-listed properties in the neighborhood, so Redfin customers can evaluate supply and demand to determine if pricing conditions are changing; and
  • The average days on market for broker-listed properties in the neighborhood, so Redfin customers can determine if their property is taking too long to sell.

The dashboard also provides an overview of nearby similar listings, so Redfin sellers can compare their listing's pricing, photos and amenities to those of its competition, and an overview of recently sold properties in the neighborhood, so Redfin sellers can evaluate closing prices as well as listing prices. Using the dashboard, Redfin customers can also schedule and promote open houses.

Starting today, Redfin's real estate search map now displays open-house data that originates directly from local Multiple Listing Services, which brokers use to share open-house information with their peers and their clients. Together with Redfin's January announcement of a home tours policy that allows clients to go on four home tours without paying any money up-front, the open-house data will make it easer for Redfin buyers to see listings.

The Cyberhomes property appraisals join estimates from Zillow.com and eppraisal.com to offer home buyers a comprehensive perspective on the price of each listing displayed on Redfin.com. The Cyberhomes estimate is valuable because it draws on data directly from one of the nation's largest title insurance companies, Fidelity National Financial.

The new release comes less than 45 days since Redfin released a version of its site featuring neighborhood boundaries, high-frequency listing updates, pricing analysis tools and Apple Safari browser support.

"We believe technology can give home buyers and sellers a competitive advantage throughout the transaction, not just during the search," said Redfin Chief Technology Officer Michael Young. "The most important issue for our listing customers has been evaluating their home's marketing and pricing by comparing online traffic and closing prices for listings across the neighborhood."

"This release is an example of our Freakish Depth strategy in action, where we use anonymous data collected from our search site to guide our customers engaged in a transaction," Mr. Young continued. "In turn we can use anonymous data gathered from ongoing transactions to build a better search site. Our website makes our business model possible by automating key tasks, but our business model is also what gives us the deep data access we need to build a better site."

About Redfin

Redfin (www.redfin.com) is the real estate industry's first online brokerage, currently available in the Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, San Francisco Bay, Seattle and Washington, D.C. areas. Redfin combines the best real estate search site with local, experienced real estate agents. Redfin.com's map search displays the most homes for sale and information about those homes. Customers who use Redfin to buy or sell properties earn a refund of most of the commission traditionally due their broker, and get full support in paperwork, offer presentation, negotiations and closing. Redfin has the highest customer satisfaction rate in the industry – 96 percent, and is the only brokerage with a 100-percent-customer-satisfaction guarantee. To give the Redfin service a try, visit www.redfin.com; to keep track of our daring exploits visit our blog at blog.redfin.com, or our customer message boards at http://forums.redfin.com.

Press Contact

Cynthia Pang
Redfin Corporation
206.859.2834