Search Online for Homes

Using Redfin's site to find homes for sale is easy. But features that help you find good deals are what really set Redfin.com apart. Here's a quick guide on how to use Redfin to smoke out the bargains.

To find homes likely to sell at a discount from the original asking price, search Redfin for homes on the market for 90 days or more:

To understand the relationship between days on market and price reductions in your neighborhood, click the Stats & Trends link in the box at the top left of the map:

This takes you to a page that graphs how often price reductions occur in your neighborhood for listings that take 45, 90 and 120 days to sell.

Look for a point where the red bar is higher than the black bar; this is how long most sellers in your market take to drop their price. In the example pictured above, the majority of homes that left the market between 91 and 120 days had gone through at least one price reduction.

To get the most bang for your buck, you can also use the list below the map to sort listings by dollar per square foot:

To sort the list, just click $/SQFT column heading. The listings that cost less per square foot are usually in worse condition or in worse neighborhoods but can some times appreciate more. You can also sort by days on market.

To include recent past sales in your data set, just adjust your query in the search panel:

This allows you to compare listing prices to prices of homes that closed within the past three or six months on the same block as a listing you're now considering buying.

You can now use this data to perform a comparative market analysis. Click the Download link at bottom left of the list, which saves the data to a spreadsheet (due to MLS rules, data download is not available in Silicon Valley).

You can also search Redfin for fixer-uppers, bank-owned foreclosure, and homes sold by owners rather than a broker, by adjusting your search in the search panel. Taking on homes like this may be more work, but can yield better value.

For each listing that Redfin displays, we include a price history just below the Google and Microsoft imagery that is useful when assessing what price the seller is likely to accept:

If a seller bought the property for a low price many years ago, he is now more likely to accept a low offer than someone struggling to break-even on a mortgage he has barely begun to pay down.

For more detailed information about a listing, we recommend PropertyShark, a real estate website that requires registration but is nonetheless very comprehensive.

Even in a slow market, the best deals go fast. Fortunately, no site synchronizes more frequently with broker data than Redfin.

To be the first to know when a new listing hits the market, subscribe to a query by clicking Email Me New Listings in the box at the top left of the map:

We'll send you an email when your area features new listings, new sales, price reductions or new open house times:

You also track individual properties via email alerts by marking a property as a favorite.

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