If you weren’t among the 13 million tuned into 60 Minutes tonight you can see the segment on the real estate industry on their site (article here.) It was great to see how much of the segment focused on Redfin. I think there is even a brief shot of me as they pan around the conference room.
My favorite bit from the segment is the non-Redfin agent who claims that even though housing prices have gone through the roof and the amount of work to sell a home has decreased that they continue to deserve the variable commission structure because of the increase in the cost of stamps and gas!
Understandably, it was a crazy night at Redfin HQ in Pioneer Square Seattle. I got there about 6pm just after the east coast airing. People were working, kids were running around, there were a few dogs, lots of beer and food. I jumped in and started responding to e-mails but there was lots of big smiles as we all watched the segment on the conference room projector.
Last week every one at the company was assigned an area and mine was to lead the charge on responding to e-mail since I’m normally the one who responds to e-mails to the company. Glenn had already responded to a bunch by the time I rolled in and I’ve since responded to about seventy-five people. Not surprisingly, given 60 Minutes demographics, we’ve heard from a lot of people interested in our services in Florida and Arizona. As well as a few inquires about Canada and Italy. There were also a number of people interested in investing but unless you’re a partner at a venture capital firm you’re out of luck and a few interested in opening their own franchise (we’re not a franchiser.) We also had lots of e-mails of encouragement but surprisingly only one negative e-mail! I think the really upset real estate agents called in instead of e-mailing. Trevor has some details on the negative phone calls. It’s a shame we don’t record phone calls.
Of course The real estate agent blogs are buzzing (Google Blog Search). Some of my favorites…
There is one real estate agent who can relate to the rising price of gas and wants to charge you even more! REALTOR RIDE EXPERIENCE FOR MS. STAHL OF 60 MINUTES
I’m betting you will wonder why 6% is all we charge.
I like how some agents admit to blogging about us just so they can get more traffic themselves, SIXTY MINUTES (3); REDFIN.COM. However, I’m confused about his downsizing comment:
Not only have they never made a profit, they had a major downsizing two months ago, and are living on venture capital, accumulated via Glenn Kelman’s terrific salesmanship.
Every other day there is a new person in the office and I’m worried I might not remember everyone’s names. Also the VC comment is weird, there are a lot of companies ‘living on venture capital’ since about $20-$29 BILLION dollars will be invested by the VC industry in 2007. We’re not alone here!
Real Estate 2.0 is back, Redfin on 60 Minutes and conferred a Harvard degree on Glenn. Of course, nothing surprises me anymore about Glenn. He doesn’t sleep. Maybe he did get a Harvard MBA without telling us.
I do like to hear from the consumers but they don’t blog about us that much. But one did! Do You Know RedFin?:
I will take paying $3000 over $21,600, or 3%, anyday (3% = 1/2 of 6%. 1/2 towards buyer agent and 1/2 towards seller agent).
Alright time to get some sleep so I can respond to more e-mails tomorrow and hopefully get some work done later in the week.
