Experience with Redfin (or similar site) agents from the sell side?

May 8, 2014 3:00 PM

Hi, hubby and I are looking to sell our house. We have a traditional agent that we've used in the past, but we don't want to use her again. We aren't ruling out using another local agent, but since we're both tech savvy and used sites such as Redfin extensively during the browsing stage, we are thinking about using a Redfin agent. Other than lower commission, the other perks like free professional photos is certainly nice to have. But other than agent's reviews on Redfin's own site, I can't seem to find stories of other people's experience using Redfin agents to sell properties. Stories of people using Redfin agents from the buy side seem to be more common. So I'm posting here to see if any MeFites who have used/know someone who have listed properties with Redfin, both pros and cons of going this way. Thanks!
posted by wcmf to Home & Garden (2 answers total)

We used Redfin to sell our place in Somerville, MA, last year and made out like bandits because the buyers came without an agent of their own, so, in addition to taking a reduced commission themselves, Redfin gave us back the commission reserved for the buyer's broker.

If we had sold the place on our own in a brokered deal, it would have cost us more!

Our agent was probably only in his mid-twenties but very hard-working and very available. In fact, everyone at Redfin was young, energetic and enthusiastic, answering emails at all times of day and night.

We were extremely impressed with how Redfin went about creating the online listing. They had a professional tour the property and give us actionable advice on presenting it better, they took measurements of every room and produced a floor plan for the listing with clickable points where you could view professional photos, they gave us a $200 check towards improvement costs, and they even lent us a large neutral-looking canvas for the living room. The listing pictures were better than any other large agency's in our area.

Redfin saves money on print advertising but they really go all the way in their online presentation.

I would urge you, though, to do your homework regarding price - we were encouraged to list fairly low and went a bit higher than Redfin recommended, and still had a bidding war. To be fair, it was a unique situation last year because the market really turned around and there was little good inventory, so the only available comps were misleading.

We sold the day after the first open house to a cash buyer.
posted by Dragonness at 8:04 AM on May 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

I sold a house with Redfin and it all went well. I had to hire my own stager -- I don't know if that's standard or not -- but other than that I can't imagine what any other company would have done that Redfin didn't.
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:08 PM on May 10, 2014