We are currently investigating this publication and evaluating our legal options.
The National Association of Realtors requests that you remove this article immediately due to the fact that Taro Systems is indeed purporting some sort of fraud at the minimum. We reserve the right to pursue the matter additionally.

Unfortunately this article has been disseminated throughout the internet and we are diligently working to have it removed.

Donna Hansen, Realtor (S)
1-800-874-6500

My iPhone sums it up best with the button I’m getting ready to hit when I’m finished writing this comment –

Done.

BTW: as to the professional ability to price the market, LOL, to all the agents who said Marin prices never ahve gone down. Ha, ha – hope you all owned a few homes. Real estate agents were a big part of the housing porn boom and bust.

In regard to coverage, you can always use a site like http://Dwellicious.com to fill in the gaps where Redfin doesn’t current serve….yet.

I guess I just dont see what your website offers that many other real estate websites dont offer. I didnt mean you automatically get less but sometimes you do get what you pay for.

I have almost the same model as your company does when it comes to buyers. I offer my website for free and they can search for homes and do what they want with no pressure from me. I dont contact them or do anything like that. I dont suggest homes to anyone. I find what works in their price range and send them the list if they want. But what we are talking about here is the buying aspect of real estate and not selling. This is where there is a clear distinction between a limited service brokerage and full service. This is why its called limited service because the services are limited. There is an obvious difference. I dont know what services you offer that I dont offer or that most agents dont or cant offer. Like I said before I looked at your site and its sort of misleading. I realize you are trying to skew things in your favor but its not really presenting a clear picture of things. Just as your fees are not really straight forward either. You do charge an up front fee which means you get paid regardless of whether you sell a home or not which is very different than what I do. As I pointed out there is obviously more incentive for me to sell a home than you because you already got paid even if its just a portion. Likewise your fees continue in that they dont include paying a commission to a buyers agent which is part of the commission of a full service brokerage. You imply the cost is only a flat rate but thats an up front fee + the flat rate + the buyers agent commission. That could easily add up and sure its less if you are talking about a $500,000 home but I can bet they would expect more services than what you offer. The other issue I have is that its rather misleading to say that you can price a home without even setting foot in it. I see you do step in the door if they pay more but everyone in real estate knows that if you price a home wrong its not going to sell and yet you are basically starting off the listing wrong by not accurately pricing it. Its easy to pick things apart and point out differences in what we do and like I said I dont think we are competing in any way. I think there is a very distinct difference between what we offer and I think most people are glad to pay more for the additional service. In the attorney analogy I used I know for a fact I would rather have the best lawyer than pay for a discount lawyer. Its the same with houses.

Yes, there are some services that we don’t offer. But there are services that we offer that no traditional agent does. Just because we offer a refund doesn’t mean you automatically get less. Cheaper != worse.

Something we believe is that we know when a consumer wants to use the web and when they want to talk to someone. This means that we don’t preview homes for clients, or find them houses. But it does mean that we have a kick ass website with more data than most any brokerage website out there so consumers can find houses themselves. Yes, you give something up, but you’re getting something in return.

And when you’re ready to see some homes we meet you there and show you the house. From home showings to close we offer almost the exact same service that other agents offer. Not surprisingly, we want to use technology to soon offer a better experience not just for searching but for buying as well.

It’s a good point that other agents are also refunding a portion of their commission like we do. We’ll update the site.

I’m sorry to hear that we didn’t live up to your expectations; I’ll talk to Anna about what happened and see what we can do better.

If there is anything more you want to share with us about your experience you can reach me at matt.goyer@redfin.com.

Shane Orgorman sounds extremely defensive and disingenuous; possibly delusional. The massive data silo’s that are the 1000s of MLS systems need to be dismantled, and the egregious fees reaped by realtors need to come back down to earth (~2% tops). Information scarcity is completely artificial at this point.