Online real estate broker Redfin today announced that by the end of last year the company had refunded more than $10 million in commissions to home buyers. Since the launch of the home-buying service in February 2006, Redfin has helped more than 1,000 people buy a home, with an average refund of $10,106. The company also offers a home-selling service, in which nearly 300 home sellers have saved more than $3 million in commissions, for an average savings of $12,142.

Home buyers get a refund by using the Internet to find a home to buy on their own and then drafting an offer using Redfin Direct for Buyers, a home-buying program that combines an e-commerce application with the services of a local, experienced Redfin agent. The Redfin agent handles home tours, pricing advice, offer presentation, negotiations, inspections and the closing process. At closing, Redfin refunds two-thirds of its commission to the customer, usually two percent of the final home price.

The $10-million-refund milestone caps a year in which Redfin launched three major initiatives:

• The Redfin Advantage: a one-year study showing that Redfin clients not only get a commission refund but also a negotiating advantage in excess of $4,000 over clients of traditional brokerages;
• The Real Estate Scientist: data-driven guidance for home buyers and sellers to get better results, based on Redfin and academic studies; and
• The Real Estate Consumer Bill of Rights: a set of reforms for ensuring that consumers are well-informed, supported by more than 25 real estate businesses.

Over the course of the year, Redfin expanded from Seattle and San Francisco to Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, Boston, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Redfin was also the first brokerage to offer online forums for consumers to communicate with one another about the home-buying and -selling process and about the quality of their service from Redfin.

"Redfin refunded $1 million in home-buyer commissions scarcely more than a year ago, so this milestone reflects the company's enormous growth in one of the worst real estate markets on record," said Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman. "We aren't aware of any other brokerage that grew as much, if at all, in 2007, and know of no other startup that had as profound an impact on an industry as we already have. We still have a long, long ways to go, but the business has done better than we could have hoped so far."

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.