For All You Data Junkies Out There

We’ve been getting local about our markets to see which towns should be hot spots for Redfin. We’re sharing the analysis for all you data junkies out there.
Here’s what we already know about Redfin buyers: they’re very likely to work in high-tech fields, they usually have a college degree, and they typically buy a house for about $500,000. Like these people:

We looked for similar demographic characteristics in targeted areas within each of our markets, and combined that with recent activity on Redfin’s site. The data we considered was:

• Visits to Redfin.com, from Google Analytics. Note that Google tracks where people are when they search, not where they’re searching on the Redfin map.
• Redfin closed deals. Useful because many Redfin buyers hear about us through word of mouth. We got this from our own database, which surprisingly is only about 50% complete.
• Demographics of the area. We considered median household income, homeownership rate, and percent of population with bachelors’ degrees or higher, as reported by the US Census. If we couldn’t find city-level data, we used county data.

We used visits to rank order the towns, and then added the other data. The top 20 towns searching on Redfin in the Boston area look like this:

City	Redfin.com Visits	Redfin Transactions	Homeownership Rate	Median HH Income	% With Bachelors’
Boston	16.6%	5.3%	32.2%	$39,629	35.6%
Somerville	12.2%	5.3%	30.6%	$46,315	40.6%
Allston	10.7%	0.0%	32.2%	$39,629	35.6%
Brookline Village	5.9%	0.0%	69.7%	$67,066	42.9%
Newton	2.1%	0.0%	69.5%	$86,052	68.0%
Cambridge	2.0%	15.8%	32.3%	$47,979	65.1%
Brighton	1.9%	0.0%	32.2%	$39,629	35.6%
Milton	1.9%	0.0%	69.7%	$67,066	42.9%
Jamaica Plain	1.7%	5.3%	75.6%	$60,359	27.8%
Watertown	1.6%	5.3%	47.0%	$59,764	47.2%
Newtonville	1.4%	0.0%	69.5%	$86,052	68.0%
Natick	1.3%	0.0%	61.7%	$62,854	43.6%
Medford	1.2%	0.0%	58.6%	$52,476	31.7%
Charlestown	1.1%	0.0%	32.2%	$39,629	35.6%
Arlington	1.1%	0.0%	61.7%	$62,854	43.6%
Waltham	0.9%	5.3%	46.0%	$54,010	38.4%
Woburn	0.9%	5.3%	61.7%	$62,854	43.6%
Framingham	0.9%	0.0%	61.7%	$62,854	43.6%
Malden	0.9%	10.5%	43.3%	$45,654	26.2%
Concord	0.9%	5.3%	61.7%	$62,854	43.6%

What’s interesting about the Boston data? Well, a lot of the neighborhoods where people are searching for homes- Somerville, Allston, Cambridge- have very low homeownership rates. But if you know Boston, you know that’s because these are where a lot of college students live. They’re mostly in apartments but maybe they’re looking for a place to buy after graduation. Or maybe they’re just blowing off class and surfing the Net.
Let’s go down the coast to Washington DC. This is a big area that covers several counties in Virginia and Maryland, as well as the cities of Washington DC and Baltimore.

City	State	Redfin.com Visits	Redfin Transactions	Homeownership Rate	Median HH Income	% With Bachelors’
Washington	DC	20.9%	20.5%	40.8%	$46,211	39.1%
Arlington	VA	14.5%	9.1%	43.3%	$66,626	60.2%
Baltimore	MD	5.1%	4.5%	50.3%	$29,792	19.1%
Falls Church	VA	3.4%	0.0%	60.6%	$82,906	63.7%
Takoma Park	MD	2.9%	0.0%	68.7%	$76,957	54.6%
Reston	VA	2.7%	2.3%	70.9%	$83,890	54.8%
Alexandria	VA	2.7%	6.8%	40.0%	$60,715	54.3%
Dunn Loring	VA	2.2%	0.0%	70.9%	$83,890	54.8%
Chevy Chase	MD	2.0%	2.3%	68.7%	$76,957	54.6%
Merrifield	VA	1.9%	0.0%	70.9%	$83,890	54.8%
Rockville	MD	1.8%	2.3%	68.7%	$76,957	54.6%
Herndon	VA	1.7%	0.0%	70.9%	$83,890	54.8%
Oakton	VA	1.7%	0.0%	70.9%	$83,890	54.8%
West Mclean	VA	1.6%	0.0%	70.9%	$83,890	54.8%
Bethesda	MD	1.5%	0.0%	68.7%	$76,957	54.6%
Sterling	VA	1.4%	0.0%	NA	$NA	NA
Fairfax	VA	1.3%	0.0%	70.9%	$83,890	54.8%
Annandale	VA	1.3%	2.3%	70.9%	$83,890	54.8%
Garrett Park	MD	1.3%	0.0%	68.7%	$76,957	54.6%
Vienna	VA	1.2%	2.3%	70.9%	$83,890	54.8%

Washington DC and Arlington ranked near the top, which wasn’t surprising to us. What was surprising was Baltimore: not often regarded as a tech center, and with a much lower median household income than Washington DC, the citizens of Baltimore showed themselves to be quite tech-savvy by searching Redfin for homes to buy (full disclosure: I’m from Baltimore).
Flying across the country to our home market of Seattle, we found some odd patterns. Note that in this data set we didn’t include the three demographic variables from census data, but we did include more of the Google Analytics statistics about the behavior of visitors.

City	Redfin.com Visits	Redfin Transactions	Bounce Rate
Seattle	46.1%	43.2%	2.8%
Bellevue	15.9%	24.6%	1.9%
Kirkland	9.3%	5.3%	1.8%
Medina	4.3%	0.1%	2.2%
Mercer Island	2.9%	1.0%	2.4%
Lynnwood	2.7%	3.2%	2.0%
Seahurst	2.6%	0.0%	2.8%
Redmond	2.0%	2.5%	2.4%
Renton	2.0%	3.3%	1.8%
Bothell	1.5%	1.1%	2.1%
Tacoma	1.2%	1.1%	3.4%
Federal Way	1.1%	1.2%	2.3%
Mountlake Terrace	0.9%	0.1%	2.4%
Kent	0.8%	1.6%	2.4%
Mukilteo	0.8%	0.0%	1.9%
Kenmore	0.7%	0.2%	2.0%
Bremerton	0.6%	0.0%	5.3%
Puyallup	0.5%	0.6%	3.8%
Spokane	0.4%	0.0%	30.5%
Auburn	0.3%	0.6%	1.6%

The best brain candy in the Seattle area data-set, in my opinion, is Medina. This city is right on the coast of Lake Washington and has some pricey real estate. It’s a small area, and so it’s not surprising that Redfin has closed few deals there. What is surprising is that Medina is the fourth largest searcher in Seattle. Could it be that Medina’s most famous resident, Bill Gates, is addicted to searching real estate on Redfin?
Also interesting is the data for Spokane, where Redfin has a lot of searchers but a high bounce rate. Bounce rate is when a searcher finds a site and immediately leaves it. The searchers of Spokane probably realized that Redfin doesn’t have service in Spokane, and left. This makes me think that Redfin should add coverage in Spokane.
Data on our California markets isn’t included here. In San Francisco, the exercise was less illuminating because San Francisco and San Jose by far dominated our search results and closed deals. We can get more granular data, down to the neighborhood level, but we didn’t for this exercise. Ditto for Southern California.