Online real estate broker Redfin today released MapStats, technology for synthesizing analytics from map-based real estate data. As a home-shopper pans across the Redfin.com map, MapStats continuously calculates average and median price, price per square foot and average numbers of bedrooms and bathrooms for the listings enclosed by the map, allowing the shopper to compare a listing to the rest of the neighborhood. Redfin has applied for a patent on this technology, which uses maps not simply to visualize information but as the basis for further analysis.

"As home-shoppers shift as little as a few hundred yards in any direction, numbers change radically and in real time," said Redfin founder David Eraker. "Panning only a mile further from the airport or a block closer to Lake Washington can increase average prices by as much as 50%. You can see exactly how where you buy affects what you pay."

"As more information is associated with location coordinates," Eraker continued, "Redfin's map can be the basis for incorporating all sorts of neighborhood context from both the Internet and listing databases: shifting education, income and crime demographics; average time on market; even neighborhood Web feeds."

Redfin users can turn on MapStats by checking the Statistics checkbox at bottom left. Users can also choose to see statistic for an area within the map. With the release of the MapStats technology, Redfin also released today a "Sweet Digs" newsletter, which provides daily e-mail updates on the most clicked-on Redfin properties.

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.