Real Estate Central

Redfin First to Offer Full Details on Foreclosures Free of Charge

SEATTLE, April 30 /PRNewswire/ — Redfin today launched a new version
of Redfin.com that combines bank-owned foreclosure and for-sale-by-owner
listings with broker-listed properties from local Multiple Listing Services
(MLS). In the markets that Redfin serves, Redfin.com now displays more
homes for sale and more information about those homes than any other
website.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20070426/SFTH054LOGO)

Beyond adding new types of inventory, the new release advances Redfin’s
data-quality leadership with new features on several fronts:


— Open-house search: Redfin users can search for open-house showings,
rather than simply seeing them alongside other property listings.
— Open-house alerts: Redfin notifies users by email or RSS when an open
house appears in their area.
— Favorites updates: Redfin notifies users by email when their favorite
listings host an open house, change price or change status.
— Improved past-sales search: An improved interface for retrieving
public records about recently sold homes lets users more easily see on
Redfin’s map the price, size and location of homes that sold between
one week and 20 years ago.
— More high-frequency MLS synchronization: Improved integration with
MLSs in Boston and Southern California decrease inventory latency from
several hours to fifteen minutes, bringing the number of MLSs with
high-frequency updates to 15 of the 16 in Redfin’s markets; the
upgrades also add open-house data for these markets.
— Square-footage data: Redfin lobbied last month to obtain
square-footage data from the Combined Los Angeles Westside (CLAW) MLS,
which Redfin now displays on its site. The square-footage data is now
available to all CLAW members.

The new version of Redfin.com also features a more elegant offer wizard
for gathering information from customers who want to use Redfin’s online
home-buying service.

New Types of Listings Expand Inventory by Five Percent

Redfin incorporated the foreclosure and for-sale-by-owner listings to
address buyers’ demands to explore an increasingly distressed real estate
market. In markets such as San Diego, foreclosure-related sales have
accounted for as much as 40 percent of all real estate sales in recent
months.

Many foreclosed properties can be bought directly from the bank prior
to their being listed by a broker in the MLS, but buyers can only see them
on most websites if and when the bank hires a broker. Redfin users can see
the foreclosed properties as soon as the bank takes possession, usually
after an auction fails to attract a buyer willing to pay the amount owed on
the mortgage.

For-sale-by-owner listings, which can represent as many as 14 percent
of homes for sale nationwide, also do not appear in most MLS-powered sites
except for Redfin. With this release, Redfin integrates data from more than
50 for-sale-by-owner sites, including ForSaleByOwner.com,
ForSaleByOwnerCenter.com, FSBOSellBuy.com and HomesByOwner.com. Overall,
foreclosure and for-sale-by-owner listings have increased Redfin’s
inventory by nearly five percent.

Redfin the First to Offer Actionable Foreclosure Data Free of Charge

The foreclosed properties are an especially valuable asset, because
Redfin is now the only major site to offer actionable foreclosure data free
of charge. Other sites show foreclosures but then ask the user to pay to
see their addresses; often these listings are marketed as foreclosures when
in fact they are in pre-foreclosure, where the owner has received a notice
of default but is still able to avert foreclosure. Redfin shows the
bank-owned (also known as Real Estate Owned or REO) foreclosure properties
that are actually for sale, including their full address and bank contact
details. Redfin does not show foreclosure properties scheduled to be sold
at auction.

Third Major Release in 2008 to Support Freakish Depth

This release is the third in 2008 to support Redfin’s strategy of
Freakish Depth, designed to establish Redfin as the leader in
comprehensive, low-latency data of the highest quality. Previous releases
this year introduced neighborhood boundaries, bird’s eye property
photographs, recommendations of similar listings, listing statistics,
spreadsheet support and new market-value estimates.

“Consumers’ first question of any real estate site is whether it shows
all the homes for sale,” said Redfin Chief Technology Officer Michael
Young. “No other site comes closer to that goal than Redfin.”

Buying Foreclosure and For-Sale-by-Owner Listings

By the end of the quarter, Redfin’s brokerage operation plans to
support the purchase of the new inventory types, for-sale-by-owner and
foreclosed homes being sold directly by a bank, charging buyers a flat fee.
When homes are listed by an agent and also available for purchase directly
from the owner, Redfin will not, out of deference to our partner
brokerages, represent the buyer in negotiations with the owner. Redfin has
no plans to support buyers pursuing homes at auctions.

About Redfin

Redfin (http://www.redfin.com) is the real estate industry’s first
online brokerage, currently available in Greater Boston; the San Francisco
Bay Area; Greater Seattle; Southern California, including Los Angeles,
Orange County and San Diego; and the Washington, D.C area, including
Baltimore. By combining maps, listings, tax records and analytics, Redfin
has become one of the most popular brokerage sites. Customers who use
Redfin.com to buy or sell properties earn a refund of most of the
commission traditionally due their broker, and get full support in
paperwork, offer presentation, negotiations and closing. Redfin has one of
the highest customer satisfaction rates in the industry, and is the only
brokerage with a 100-percent-customer-satisfaction guarantee. To give the
Redfin service a try, visit http://www.redfin.com; to keep track of our
daring exploits visit our blog at blog.redfin.com or our customer message
boards at forums.redfin.com.



See Also

• AMB Property Corporation(R) Acquires 930,000 SF Near Port of Hamburg; Site Supports Future Development Plans
• LandAmerica Reports First Quarter 2008 Results
• California Foreclosure Activity Up 38 Percent in First Quarter of 2008

Source: Real Estate Newswire