Redfin enhances home valuation tool, rivaling Zillow’s Zestimate

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Redfin wants to tell you how much your home is worth — just like Zillow. The Seattle online real estate company today rolled out what it’s dubbing Redfin Home Value Tool, a service that relies on “up-to-the-minute” data to tell home buyers and sellers the values of homes. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Of course, Zillow… Read More…

Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff responds to Redfin question: ‘We sell ads, not houses’

Spencer Rascoff of Zillow

Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff appeared this week on Bloomberg TV, declaring that the housing market is “back” and noting that some markets like San Francisco are seeing values skyrocket to unstainable “bubble-licious” levels. But what caught my ear was Rascoff’s comments, yet again, on the potential challenges facing discount brokerages such as Redfin. “For most… Read More…

Redfin sets up new title and escrow subsidiary, continuing quest to upend real estate

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Redfin has certainly made it clear that it wants to transform the real estate business — initially focusing on the way people buy and sell homes. Now, the Seattle company is branching off in a new direction. Redfin recently established a new subsidiary called Title Forward that plans to offer both title and escrow services… Read More…

Redfin unveils Offer Insights: Real-time insider details for home buyers

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Redfin continues to push toward more transparency in the traditionally opaque real estate industry, launching a new micro-blogging service of sorts today called “Offer Insights.” Redfin has played around with this concept for years, getting slapped on the wrist back in 2007 by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service for posting honest reviews of homes to… Read More…

Redfin to top $50M in sales: Kelman says there’s more to the Internet than ‘just running ads for other people’

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Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman popped by the TechCrunch offices earlier today to talk about the company’s new Collections photo service, which we wrote about earlier. But that’s not what caught our attention. For the first time that I can recall, Kelman disclosed the company’s annual revenues, noting in the interview that Redfin will do north… Read More…

Redfin unveils Collections, a new photo-sharing service for real estate nerds

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Sometimes, working in real estate can be all about crunching numbers and analyzing data. But there’s an emotional and creative side, too, and Redfin’s new photo-sharing service hopes to tap into that. It’s called Collections, a new social feature that allows users to create and share sets of listing photos. People can create Collections on… Read More…

Redfin touts $100 million in real estate savings, plans to double Seattle office space

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It’s hard to believe, but Seattle-based Redfin is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. And what has the online real estate brokerage done in that time frame? Well, for one, the company announced today that it has saved customers more than $100 million in real estate fees since it was founded (and topped $8 billion… Read More…

Redfin unveils new search feature: Find your dream home in the top school zone

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People buy homes for all sorts of reasons — fenced yards, fireplaces and big master bedrooms. But, as many parents can attest, those factors often take a back seat to the school zone where the house is located. Now, thanks to a new search tool from Redfin, parents can find their dream homes in the… Read More…