Allie's 5-Star Reviews

We found Allie to be knowledgeable, responsive, helpful, funny, and an all-around pleasure to have on the transaction. She and her team (Dorcas included) has us moving along from the moment we put the offer in, and we felt were in very capable hands every step of the way. I'd recommend her - and Redfin! - without reservation to anyone we know who's in the market. THANKS!

Allie was wonderful throughout the whole process. We had a very complex situation which required extra effort on her part, and she was more than willing to help us with whatever we needed. Speaking with Allie was always comforting and we felt like she was very competent and knowledgeable. She never gave us the sense that she trying to rush us off the phone or give us quick yes/no answers. She gave us as much time as we needed whenever we spoke with her.

Allie was fantastic! Very organized, very knowledgeable, always available. She handled all our (sometimes idiotic) first-time-home-buyer questions with an amazing level of patience. I simply cannot praise her enough in this little web form.

Allie is a rock star! I just purchased my first home and Allie and Redfin could not have made the process easier. From our first conversation, all the way through offer, inspection, and closing, her professionalism, advice, and knowledge made the entire process almost too easy to believe. I highly recommend her as a lead agent.

She worked very diligently through a difficult negotiation. She was very knowledgeable and had good advice. My only complaint was that she was a little overconfident in the ease of getting a mutually beneficial move in date.

Allie made the home buying process so easy. We'd done research online and heard horror stories from friends and family. The actual experience was a lot less painful than we imagined. The whole Redfin experience was great. All the staff we worked with were knowledgeable, friendly, and professional. We never had any pressure to buy, and just the right amount of hand-holding during the actual offer process. We've recommended Redfin to everyone we know thinking about buying. Thank you for all your help!

My experience was great. She monitored the situation, explaining each step, was able to negotiate effectively, advised me on the right price, etc. The whole transaction was painless and quick, yet very helpful.

The combination of having Allie as an agent as well as a motivated seller made this a great experience. Everything flowed smoothly and made for a timely close. I will definitely be recommending Allie to friends, and will hopefully be able to work with her again in the future.

Allie was great to work with. I appreciated her knowledge of the west seattle market and helping us to obtain a really fair deal. Thanks to her the transaction was very easy and smooth. She's a great asset to the Redfin team and i would definitetly use her services again and recommend them to my freinds. Thanks!

Allie was a huge help with purchasing a home. I moved from Cleveland which makes it really hard to find a place remotely. However, the redfin site was easy to use and they agents were very accomodating of the two whirlwind trips I took out here to view homes in a kind of rapid fire fashion. Allie was accomodating in every way and gave great advice on homebuying during the process. She was always very patient and available for questions. There were some unique aspects of my homebuying situation and she went the extra mile for me. In addition to all of the above, she has a ton of knowledge about builders and home quality that helps. I would highly recommend her to a friend.

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Allie, along with assistantance from Cory, did a wonderful job after a prospective buyer came forward. Allie was able to get what we were hoping from in terms of price for our house. Allie was quick to respond to any questions we or the buyer had.

Allie provided to us exactly what we were looking for - professional, accurate, on-time help with our transaction, which also considered and fully supported our vision and desire. Unlike other agents outside of Redfin Allie was not pushing us, neither rushing us to purchase, she assisted in anyway possible for us to understand the process and to get maximum benefit. Allie is a superb negotiator, besides everything else. Thank you, Allie for the great service!

My experience with Allie was great. As a first time homebuyer, I was a little nervous about the entire process. Allie's experience and excellent negotiation skills made me feel at ease. I love my new place! Thanks Allie!

Allie was awesome! Totally on-the-ball, professional, knowledgeable, smart, helpful, and knows how to seal the deal! This was not our first home purchase and we have never worked with a better agent! She listened to everything we said and wanted, and followed through with all promises. She made what was a very stressful purchase (because of the seller) a lot more manageable and pleasant than it would have been otherwise. Excellent!

Allie was an amazing agent in all respects. When we finally found the house we'd been looking for, she had an offer to the sellers within 3.5 hours of our first tour!!! She is efficient, kind, skilled, and very committed to her work. She and the other Redfin staff members walked us through every step of the process and answered our questions immediately and thoroughly. We really can't say enough positive things about Allie. She, quite simply, ROCKS!

She made the buying process easy and was always quick with responses to questions. There was never any pressure.

Allie was great! The home we purchased was bank owned and it was really nice to work with an agent and a team that had previous experience with these types of real estate. I'm not sure we would have been as satisfied with our experience had we gone with a traditional agent. Thanks again to Allie and the Redfin team!

It was a pleasure to work with Allie over the course of our home purchase. Her ideas for crafting a strong offer and negotiating credits and pre-paids with the seller were great. She was always prompt at returning calls and providing status updates. Once our offer was accepted, the hand off to the other redfin staff was seamless.

Allie was attentive to our house purchase. She helped us negotiate a fair price, kept us in the loop frequently, and returned calls promptly.

Allie was friendly, professional, and helped me get a great deal. I was buying for the first time, and she answered all of my questions (even those not specifically pertinent to my interactions with redfin) and was an absolute pleasure to work with.

Our experience using Redfin was a great one. Allie was fantastic to work with as well as the rest of the team. The transaction was crazy, but not due to any Redfin issues. I would definately use Allie, and Refin again and will refer my friends and family.

We chose Allie because of the impression she made during the Redfin home buying seminar. Her easy going personality was exactly what we were seeking. We also felt she possessed a good sense of the negotiating process and would be able to land us the best deal possible. She understood our wants and needs while balancing what she felt was the most realistic approach to dealing with the seller. We appreciated Allie's responsiveness to our numerous "first time home buyer" questions. Upon placing our initial "offer," Allie was good about keeping us informed even if it required doing so on the weekends and evenings. We would gladly do business with Allie again and plan on recommending her to our friends entering the real estate market.

Allie negotiated a great deal for us, both initially and post-inspection. She was courteous, professional, and straightforward in all of our dealings with her. We never had a problem reaching her, and when she was out of the office she left us in the capable hands of her associate agent. We are thrilled to be in our new home!

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We loved the independant bent of the service. We like to be in on all the details ourselves so this worked well. We loved the refund (savings.) That was totally worth some of the hassle. The hassle that was inconvenient, but may be unavoidable, was 1) scheduling tours out far enough ahead to get the time we wanted. (more field agents!) and 2) if your closing etc. hits durring a shift change between senior agents, it becomes difficult to keep track of who you should be talking to. Having the person filling in for your agent email when they are taking over to let you know who you can call, and then another email from your agent when they are back would be good. Otherwise all agents, field and senior, all seemed to truely try to help in any way they could.

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If I ever sell my house, it will be through Redfin, the future of real estate in America!

Pleasant, professional, and punctual. Very imPressed.

Allie was great and we would highly recommend her.

It was great to have Allie assisting us in this transaction. We are very satisfied with her professionalism and dedication. The communication was open and prompt. We have recommended Redfin to a friend already. Thank you.

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The handoff from our Agent who coordinated the deal and the follow-up staff was not very good. Some things hit the crack. Otherwise, the experience with Redfin was outstanding! We really appreciate the fact that the agents do not work on commission. We have already recommended Redfin to others.

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We had a wonderful experience with Redfin and were so happy to have chosen you as our representative. Keep up the great work!

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The site could be improved. A subtle but powerful improvement would be a feature to add a listing to a "Dont Show" list. Kind of like a favorites, but saying you dont want that house to show up in the view.There were times when I saw a house, didnt like it, and had to filter it out again when I came back to the site to look at other houses.

We saved LOTS of money and it was easy. THANK YOU.A big thank you to Allie Howard. She's the best!

Working with RedFin was a pleasure -- the most dependable and stress-free part of my real estate transaction. I'd recommend RedFin to anyone.

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Foreclosure information. Improvement on location map - a lot like what Google has..

None

I thought it was a little annoying that I had to re-enter some information. e.g., my second home tour I had to submit an approval letter that I had already submitted that could have been on file.

Upon getting assigned an agent, I received a letter of the home buying process. It would be nice to have that fleshed out a little more since it has been a long time since I bought a house. In addtion, I was unsure during the process of the roles and responsibilities that Allie had versue Melissa. It would be nice to know who does what as the process proceeds so when I had a question I would have asked the correct person to avoid wasting the other persons time.

I just wanted to say that Allie was wonderful in helping a first time buyer, and a new transplant to Seattle with EVERY step of the buying process. She was very frank about trying her best to structure the offer to get for me a deal that was acceptable to me and her guidance about the merits of specific properties over others was in valuable.I would also like to say that Melissa Smith went ABOVE and BEYOND the call of duty as a transaction coordinator. Originally we thought my loan would be a smooth transaction since I provided a great deal of detailed supporting documentation prior to even contacting Redfin (for my prequal letter). However after we got mutual acceptance it was difficult to get adequate communication from my loan officer. It was Melissa who helped me navigate and endure through the many hoops that we had to jump to finally acheive financing approval in the end. Without her support and help I do not think I would have tolerated the unprofessional way my loan application was handled and I must say that working with both Allie and Melissa have been one of the best parts of the whole first home buying process. I would definitely recommend working with them and Redfin to all my friends and family! Thanks!!!!

Both Pamela and Allie were great answering questions. Sometimes it took a few hours, but I understand they're busy. :) One area that I think could be approved would be a little more proactive communication. I liked the schedule of events I got at the beginning of the process with dates, etc. It would be nice to have clearer communication such as "Okay, the next item to worry about is the documents getting to the lender. You should hear from me regarding this by date X." Too often I felt like I didn't have a totally clear grasp on where things stood, and I was unsure if I was supposed to be doing something.On the other hand, I felt this way w/ the agent I used for my last transaction, too. But you want to be better than that, right? ;)Thanks again, it was a great experience!

Notes re: my evaluation of Allie-- She was extremely responsive, professional and thorough. That said, my offer scenario highlighted a potential hole in the Redfin structure. I made an offer and received a counteroffer to expire Friday at 9 p.m. for House 1. On Thursday morning, another house (House 2) was relisted at $40K less than it had been (putting it into my price range). I visited and decided to make an offer Thursday afternoon but wanted to inspect before deciding whether to accept the counteroffer on House 1 or pursue House 2 (which I feared might get other offers in light of the substantial reduction in price). Allie did a great job of getting an offer in on House 2 and arranging an inspector to check it out on Friday. However, after the inspector checked, there were substantial wiring and settling issues, so I wanted to cancel the contract on House 2 and make a counter-counteroffer on House 1. The inspection didn't finish until the early evening, and I needed to respond to House 1 counteroffer by 9 p.m. I placed a call to Allie around 7 p.m., but there was no answer. I e-mailed, but she was out. This was generally understandable for a Friday evening, but ultimately since the counteroffer was good through 9 p.m., I needed counsel on whether to accept or counter the counteroffer. I ultimately decided to accept the counteroffer and called the listing agent directly. It was about 8:30 p.m. and she answered immediately. She was a bit confused because she said Allie had called earlier in the day saying I was not accepting the counteroffer but was pursuing another house. I'd thought Allie said we would let the counteroffer lapse, rather than giving a response.

At the end of the day, Allie did a fabulous job, but the above situation highlighted some Redfin shortcomings:

* Availability: My impression was that the electronic aspect of communications wasn't a problem, but the hours seemed to be more of a 9-5 or 9-6 availability. Other agents seemed to be on call all the time. This is fine, but should be made clear if it is a Redfin difference.

* Complexity: Redfin may not be set up to handle complex situations as well (such as where there are both an offer and a counteroffer balanced at the same time with tight timing).

* Pricing: While Redfin has good advice about preparing offers falling into either aggressive price cutting, moderate, and get-the-house categories, in this uncertain market, since the agents are not in the field, I didn't feel like Redfin could offer insights into whether a listing was a good price, a screaming deal, or overpriced. If the understanding is that the onus is on the buyer to research (using things like Zillow etc estimates available on Redfin's site) that's fine, but Redfin might want to clarify that.

The rebate was the reason I used Redfin, so I didn't expect much in the way of service. I was pleasantly surprised and extremely impressed with the quality of service, competence and responsiveness.

As a side note, my colleague represents and trains many brokers, so I had him review the offers that Allie prepared. He was impressed and said she "got it right" on details that most brokers miss. Well done!

I'll definitely recommend Redfin to friends.

P.S. The magazine where I first heard of Redfin was the Metropolitan issue Spring or Summer of 2007. It was a blurb in the 'what's hot/what's not' column. I showed buying a fixxer upper in Madrona as 'not hot' and using Redfin as 'hot'. They were right!

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I don't know how you do it but you hire GREAT people. Allie, Melissa and Marni are all fantastic. They all deserve stars on their dressing room doors...!

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Melissa, my transaction coordinator, would answer questions that she didn't know the answer to. She seemed to just make stuff up that wasn't correct. This meant I had to always go back to Allie to verify information. It would have been nicer (like with my questions about title insurance) if she'd just said "I don't know."

The site navigation was a little frustrating. Once you get in somewhere, it's hard to find the home page or the other sections. It's like you go into a subpart of the site and there isn't good navigation to find the other areas. Also, once you've been doing searches, every time you come back to Redfin it shows your search results, and it's hard to get out of this mode. The search tool was really cool, with the little houses appearing, and the best part was that it remembered which ones I'd looked at before. That is a key usability feature and should be preserved. But the menus need to be improved and always available even when you've drilled down into another part of the site.

You've got an uphill battle with the traditional agents. It's like midwives trying to carve out a niche for themselves again after doctors took over the Universe. Your model is waaaaaay friendlier to the customer, but it's going to really piss off other agents. Not sure how you can handle this, as the fact is you're taking their money away as you get more successful. The no-dicker-sticker is very welcoming to customers - having the agents not earn commissions is fantastic. I think it's a wonderful model. Keep hiring friendly people instead of the plastic real-estate autobots. :)

I'm totally a fan and will recommend you to anyone.

I found out through my lender about closing before my agent did. pehaps an automated email system for picking up your keys after the numbers come back. it would be faster. (instant gratification!)

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After closing, I was expecting some sort of house warming gift (I believe which is customary with traditional agent).

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It'd be interesting if in the future it could be buyer to seller directly in regard to viewing a home, or if there was a law that required a listing agent to show the home if someone requests it.Also, I'd love to see ALL of the home buying process take place in an online web application. No PDF forms, faxing, emailing, but web forms for all the documents, plus scheduling, and workflow tools for the entire home buying process. Power to the people!

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