A new feature from Redfin provides detailed stats on more than one million real estate agents

It’s kind of the equivalent of the stats on the back of a baseball card, but in this case for real estate agents. Scouting Report, a new online service that’s launching today from real estate broker Redfin, reveals the real-world stats of more than one million real estate agents across the country.

There’s no batting average or ERA, but users of the service can see how many homes agents have sold in the past three years and at what median price.

Glenn Kelman (Randy Stewart photo)

Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman thinks the service will stir up the industry (something he’s been prone to do in the past), noting that consumers “went nuts” for the concept when it was released in a test version last May.

“No one else has done this on a large scale,” Kelman tells GeekWire. “Consumers for the first time will be able to see how good their agent really is.”

Unfortunately, due to restrictions from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service — an agency in which Redfin has butted heads in the past — the Scouting Report feature is not available in the Seattle area.

But it can be used in most of the other markets where Redfin operates, including San Francisco, LA, Chicago, Portland and Boston.

Just like baseball cards, Scouting Reports provide all of the vital stats for a potential home buyer thinking about drafting an agent.

Those include how many homes the agent has sold in the past three years; the average number of price drops for each home sold; the median sales price; the range of prices; how often the agent represented buyers and sellers; and the number of distressed properties sold.

All of the information is plotted on a map, with pictures of properties. The stats apply to both Redfin agents and non-Redfin agents.

As I mentioned before, Kelman has certainly tried to stir up the real estate industry in the past. And releasing this treasure trove of data may not win him fans with agents who are struggling. But the Internet entrepreneur said that it marks an important feature.

“We released this so folks could get the facts about their agent, and make better decisions about whom to use to sell their house. We think more will, as a result, use Redfin agents,” he said. “But the reason we did this was also more animal. What we tell ourselves here every day is that we came here to change the game, to make real estate totally different and better — and this just seemed like a Redfin kind of thing to do.”

I was also curious to get more details on what it would take to see this service here, as I am sure the voyeuristic urges of Seattleites would want to see this in action for local agents. Here’s what Kelman had to say on that matter:

“I think it’s just hard for our Seattle data provider to keep all the brokers happy about what data we can publish, especially if Redfin comes to the party with a totally different idea of fun and starts guzzling down the punch,” he says. “So rather than being obnoxious about it, we totally understand the concerns around what we can publish, and just expect that we’ll be able to address ‘em over time.”

Like what you're reading? Subscribe to GeekWire's free newsletters to catch every headline

Job Listings on GeekWork

Find more jobs on GeekWork. Employers, post a job here.