In the wee hours of the morning we released our latest Redfin upgrade; not only did we upgrade our site, but our service, too. Now, in addition to helping you tour short sales, Redfin agents can also help you purchase them! We also revamped our agent profiles and threw in a few other bonuses.
Short Sales from Start to Finish
Today, we’re excited to announce that Redfin agents will help you every step of the way of your short sale purchase, from your first tour, through the often-confounding maze of dealing with banks, and out the other side.
The only catch is that since short sales take longer and more legwork than a regular transaction Redfin will refund 15% of our commission instead of our usual refund.
Why the change of heart? For one short sales are increasingly popular, as banks may be less likely to foreclose. Secondly short sales are more likely to be approved as banks streamline the process. Thirdly, you’ve been persistent in asking us about em. Rather than jumping right into the icy waters, we eased our way in, quietly getting more and more short sale experience and expertise until we knew we were ready.
Now, we’re not saying that every, or even most, short sale transactions will be smooth sailing. Short sales can still be tricky and may test your patience, especially when multiple lien holders are involved.
Want more info on short sales? Dive into our forums; there’s lots of folks talking about short sales. Or, stop by one of our short sale classes. We’ve got some coming up in Phoenix, Maryland and Irvine. (Want a short sale class in your area? Email us at events@redfin.com.)
New Agent Profiles
Our number-one recommendation to someone entering the real estate world is to find an agent with recent local experience in the area where they want to buy or sell a home. Today, we’re making it really easy for you to visualize a Redfin agent’s local expertise by giving you a map that shows the location of every home she’s helped a customer buy or sell. Same goes for our partner agents.
We didn’t just slap a map on our agents’ profile pages — we completely revamped every profile:
- Badges: With a single glance, you’ll be able to gauge an agent’s experience with first-time buyers, bidding wars, condos, single-family homes, and more.
- Status: Find out about upcoming events where you can meet a Redfin agent, or just learn something new about your favorite local real estate expert.
- Sweet spots: Get the scoop on each agent’s areas of expertise, such as median price points and short sale or foreclosure experience.
And just like before, we show you reviews from all the customers we’ve worked with.
45′ Imagery, Pendings…
We also upgraded to the latest version of Google Maps giving you access to their 45′ aerial imagery direct from our search page (where available; they don’t yet have imagery for all the cities we’re in). Just zoom in, click the “Satellite” button then “45’”. It’s a little like taking a hot-air balloon trip over your favorite neighborhood.
And we also added pending sales to search results, so you don’t miss anything. If seeing all those pendings drives you crazy, just click “More Options” beside the search box, and then change the status search option to “Active” to hide them.
Until Next Time
As usual, we also spent some time under the hood to speed up the site up a bit, and added a whole bunch of behind-the-scenes features for our agents. Now we’re hunkering down and cranking out an iPad app alongside a bunch of other goodies. Stay tuned!
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