I used Tom Lewis. He was fantastic. My real estate transaction ended up being a little more complicated than anticipated, and Tom helped me throughout the ordeal. I ended up getting a great apartment at a great price ... plus a rebate! :) Highly recommend. read more

We loved our experience as buyers through Redfin. I think the only reason NOT to use Redfin is if you don't want to pick the houses you tour yourself and would prefer to have a realtor select houses for you--however, with the search options that are available I can't imagine anyone wanting to give over that control. We loved the no-pressure approach, the fact that there was always someone available to tour with us, the fact that we got $$$ back (to the tune of four figures), and the fact that Redfin has more up-to-date listings than Zillow or Trulia. Our realtor was Michael Alderfer, and he was awesome--very responsive by phone or email, and has remained an amazing resource to us even after closing when we've had lingering questions. read more

We were purchasing from out of state--came into town for 3 days, found a home, made an offer, and then we returned to our home out of state and finished the process (settled through the mail). Redfin gave us outstanding service--highly recommend this business. Redfin.com allowed us to do the home filtering at our convenience. We identified homes we were interested in seeing, then scheduled "home tours" online. Showing agents took us into these homes. When we were ready to make offers, the negotiating/closing agent helped us write a competitive offer and led us through the remaining months of the purchase process, through and even post-closing. At closing, we received $6,300 from Redfin (half of the buyer's commission). If Redfin is a good fit for you, we give our highest recommendations to the agents below. In fact, if we had to construct a "dream team" for buying a home, we would hire Paul Stone--excellent showing agent--responsive, flexible, willing to make last-minute changes to the home tour, very personable, and he also had relevent opinions about the homes we looked at. And we would hire Kendell Walker--exceptional negotiating/closing agent--accessible at all hours, knows her business well, and has been an absolute pleasure to work with. She made herself accessible to us at all hours of the day, throughout the week and weekend. If we had a question or concern, we almost always could reach her immediately. If not, we had an answer within a few hours. We knew she had other clients, but we certainly couldn't tell! We could tell that she'd done this once or twice before. She knew the process inside and out. She earned our trust early-on when she guided us through the offer-making process on multiple homes. She delivered the offers with perfect timing, putting us in position to get our favorite home--and all of this before the expiration of the new homebuyer's tax credit. She also thought to ask about the notarization requirement for out-of-state settlement, and she asked this question well in advance. This allowed us time to plan to get that done, during a critically busy week for us w/ movers in our home. These are just two examples of how she made the whole process easy. Not only was she accessible and good at her job, but we also really enjoyed our interactions with her. She was positive, friendly, helpful, and cheerful! We would recommend her and Redfin to anyone, because of the great experience we've had over the last few months working with her. read more

We have had several showings of our home by Redfin agents. They never leave a business card to show they were there, they never provide feedback to the listing agent, and the majority do not leave the home in the same way it was left (lights on, doors locked, etc.) In fact, we have a sign asking for all visitors to remove their shoes or wear shoe coverings and this request is also ignored. We are not impressed with Redfin. read more

We also had a great experience with the Maryland side of the Redfin house (Taylor Connolly, Russell Chandler, Jessica Bevacqua, and others). We moved to the DC area from Washington state where Redfin is based and knew the company's revolutionary take on the Real Estate industry was for us. This was a great experience from top to bottom, we closed on 5/19 and the rebate from Redfin was over $5000. The Redfin rebate is half of their commission on the transaction. We were first time home buyers and Taylor was excellent. He was never pushy and always willing to go to bat for us against the sellers. Best of all we were never put in a position where we felt uncomfortable like many of my friends who recently purchased with traditional brokers had experienced. Redfin is a very transparent company and is bringing that transparency to the Real Estate industry (kicking and screaming). Kudos to a great company, this should be everybody's first choice for RE transactions. read more

We absoluted LOVED the entire Redfin experience! I think this is just the best model for real estate! Low pressure, everyone working together and keeping us informed every step of the way - these are not traits one usually associates w/ a real estate company! I was so dreading the whole home-buying process. All realtors before have said "We're here to take the pressure off of you." but then that usually turns out to be the opposite. This is a totally different experience and I commend Redfin for a truly pioneering business model. It makes so much sense to work as a team - some realtors are better at showing and pointing out important things of a home or area and some are better at the contracts and negotiating so why not have everyone work where their strengths are? I've been involved in 4 real-estate transactions in the past year and a half and Redfin was hands-down the best experience. This was the ONLY time I felt even close to being able to trust a realtor and feel like they truly were working for US. For the person who found them non-responsive - they must have gotten the one bad apple because we worked with several agents throughout the process and every single one of them was extremely responsive in communicating, the electronic process made submitting an offer a breeze (it literally took minutes to receive the contract sign it and send it back), and contract changes were also very easy - no more struggling with faxing 15 legal size pages or going to Kinkos in the middle of the night to scan things! We initially chose Redfin because of the commission rebate but would chose them again for the excellent service and quality procedures. 5 stars all around! read more

Redfin is great with the no pressure sales they do. After that, my struggle was with the lack of continuity. Every time you go out, you get a new person. Talked to our real estate agent on the phone was like going to a Doctor who forgets your first name every time you come for an appointment. When I first met my real estate agent, I mentioned to them the areas I was interested in and the areas I was not. Then, I got an email from them suggesting that I look at a house in the the area where I didn't want to buy. This was fine the first time but it happened four times. I also felt as though I was thrown into the offer process without even a phone call from my agent. This was also tough. The other thing that was tough for me to swallow was the fact that there were three to four houses we were interested in which we asked them to keep us appraised of. All four times we woke up the next day to find out it was sold before our agent did. We found ourselves asking why a selling agent wouldn't at least want the possibility of a bidding war. read more

Well, for some reason, Yelp is filtering the review I left yesterday. I guess I have to hope that people who really want to know about Redfin will read the filtered comments. So another day, another shafting by our own agent. We have done every single thing she has recommended. We have made one concession after another and she is now saying that to get back the extra five days of the 15 days that the buyers - with her help - took back without our consent, we have to pay the interest AND leave some personal property for them. Let me repeat that so it is clear. They would not meet us in the middle when we were very close in price. Instead, they offered extra post-closing occupancy and we accepted. Then they retracted that and offered fewer days and our agent - without consulting us - said yes. So we are just asking for five of those days back. She said we should offer them the personal property they wanted if we want those five days. We said OK. Now she is saying that they want the personal property AND the interest for those five days. If you want an agent who will represent YOUR interests, do not use Redfin. Yes, the commission is lower, but you get what you pay for. SHAFTED. I read that the original Redfin model was basically: you find the house, you negotiate, they do the paperwork for you. I think that is still basically what is going on. She is just transmitting messages from the buyers. She is not actually doing anything to help us. I could have handled the paperwork myself. I am handling the purchase of our new home myself (with the help of the title agency). read more

Just closed the sale of my house at $514k, using another realtor. Two Redfin agents did listing presentations (two years in a row) and the Redfin recommended sales price was $412k. Pretty obviously, they lowball the sales price in order to make the house sell with no work -- but the cost of the "reduced" sales commission is pretty hefty. read more

I was on a serious house hunt and was using Redfin tours. I had to cancel a few times because life got in the way (always with notice never a no show.). I get a warning call from a very rude agent warning me that I can't keep cancelling, that they are busy agents. I promise to try and not do it anymore and set up my next tour. The house I want to see this time is not listed as a cash only purchase on Redfin so the touring agent calls me to tell me this, and I can't do cash only so I agree not to see the house, in effect, cancelling again. Redfin then calls me and tells me they have now blocked me from touring! Hard to believe. read more

Ultimately, I wouldn't recommend Redfin for a first time home buyer. The home buying process is complex and a situation where "you don't know what you don't know" and it's important to have a realtor to guide you through the pitfalls. On the recommendation of a friend, I initially used Mike Alderfer as my agent. This was an epic fail as he was never available on weekends, wasn't responsive to questions, and almost forgot to submit one of my offers! It seems as he is now the DC area manager, which I suspect means he may have other responsibilities which don't make him the most responsive as a traditional agent, but it was a really bad experience and I had to change agents ( I made 3 offers with Mike, so this is a well-informed review). I ultimately did end up buying with Redfin, albeit another agent, but truth be told, had my final offer not gone through I was definitely switching to another real estate company. Here's why: - Even as someone very familiar with the area and knowing what I want, it is helpful to have someone who has an eye out for you; not there to simply take your calls and answer questions but proactively looking for homes you may like and advocating for you. I think of Redfin as a reactive only organization that is there to assist but you have to have the driver's seat at all times - Because they all take in a salary I think there isn't as much as an incentive for them to make things right for you. They say they review every agent, but I never got the opportunity to review Mike, so I am suspect of their review process. - To the previous point as well, I didn't always think that the realtor was really fighting for me to win a property. There was more than one situation where I had a competitive offer that was narrowly beat out. In those cases, I feel as though it's the x-factor or drive of the agent to make the sale that helps to win in a competitive offer situation. I'm not sure the incentive structure at Redfin encourages this drive. - There were some mistakes made during the offer process that would have been costly but were ultimately caught (by my lending agent actually) so this was an issue, but probably something that just happens I think once you know what you're doing, the Redfin model and its refund structure could be beneficial. But even as I sit in my new home now, in retrospect I would probably forgo the Redfin refund to have a more streamlined buying process. read more

The "team model" did not work well at all for me. Fairly unresponsive after the contract was signed. No follow up or follow through on questions and outstanding items. Received condo docs 19 hours before closing. I doubt that I'll use a Redfin agent again. read more

I will not recommend to use this company services,The realtors they do not care since they are salary..When you call they are always sick or they have to take care their kids etc.Also they claim to have the best Realtors with experience (The Realtor they recommended to us had her license for 11 months) .When I called the Manager in San Mateo she didn't care and she told me "I wish you the best"I can go on and on .I only can say if you don't want your home sale experience be a night mare do not use Redfin .Also they will lowball the price of you house ,because they want a easy and fast sale (The Realtor from Red fin told me that)That the company requite then to give you the lowest price for your home.If we would agreed on the price my house would go on the market for $50.000 less that actually the market value. read more

Not a good experience for us !! the Redfin agents are not professional at all, they are more like staffs working for a company rather than agents to help, guide and walk the clients through home-buying journey. The agent we worked with was not really acting in our favor and was more like an interface between us and the other party to transfer their responses to us and take our answers to them!! We just wasted our time and missed so many opportunities on the homes we really liked. read more

Can you put zero stars up? THis is probably the worse way to buy a home. THere is ZERO contact with agents. They are slow to respond, slow to put in an offer and down right rude. Do they forget they are making money on every house that is being sold? WHy not work with a real person rather than do everything on line.. We lost out on 2 homes because of Redfin's lack of response. Don't use them. read more

We are currently house-hunting with Redfin as our buying and selling agents. This will be our second home purchase (the first time we used another company and it was a mess)! I cannot say enough how pleased I am with the service I am receiving. NO PRESSURE, just calm, ready to help agents with a smile on their face! Buying a home is stressful and they really help lighten the load. The agent who takes us on tours brings an iPad to check listing details, a metal ball to see how level the floors are, and a flashlight for those dark attic or laundry room spaces! I would recommend them in a heartbeat (and actually already have). read more

My wife and I were searching for 9 months and toured 80+ homes to fine the right house. Bryan and his was team (Jessica Bevacqua, Stephen, Kilroy Russell Chandler, Michelle Danson and Ingrid Mason) was very patients with us. Bryan and his team stuck beside us through the whole process they were always available for questions or to assist with anything that we needed. Bryan team did everything quickly and thoroughly the first time around. We would highly recommend Bryan and anyone on his team to anyone looking to purchase or sell a home. They was a pleasure to work with, organized and definitely on top of our situation. THANKS Bryan and his whole Team!!! read more

I recently purchased a home using Redfin with Lynn Ikle. The Redfin model was exactly what we needed, and came with an excellent reward at the end (a credit toward our closing cost). Lynn was fantastic. She was attentive, competent, and supportive. She was available whenever we needed her and help/protected us through some very large bumps in the road. I would recommend Redfin and Lynn to anyone who asked. read more

Rob Wittman is the man you want on your side. Responsive, knowledgable, ethical, and aggressive! We now own a house in Ballston and thank Rob for helping make it happen in a way that worked with our wants and constraints! read more

My husband and I decided to use RedFin as first time home-buyers. He had heard about the website and introduced me to it. I would definitely recommend RedFin as an alternative to the traditional real estate agent options. Things that are great about RedFin: you get to control/pick the houses you look at; everything (almost) can be done online using their website and emailing with your agent; they offer FREE home-buying classes that were so much more informational than the classes we paid for; everyone at RedFin works quickly (i.e., electronic documents) which is a must when buying in DC; once your offer is accepted, the site creates a Deal Room for you that tracks every action you have to take in order to close on your house; you get 1/2 the buyer's agent's commission back as a refund. Our agent was Stuart Gavan, our Coordinator was Jessica Bevacqua, and our inadvertent back-up agent was Randall Proctor- all were incredibly helpful and wonderful to work with. We enthusiastically recommend all three of them, and RedFin in general! read more

loved working with redfin! you get to do all your research online (which is what most people do these days anyway when looking for real estate), then ask for one of their agents to show you the places. absolutely no pressure from the agents since they didn't do the online research for you, and they don't work on commission. once you find the right place, they hold your hand the entire way (through the offer, contingencies, home inspection, financing . . . ). and the bonus is that they REFUND you half of the comission. i got about $8000 back from them. if i'd worked with a traditional real estate agent, i would've done the exact same deal (including all my own internet research) but wouldn't have had that extra $8000 to put towards closing. GO TO REDFIN.COM RIGHT NOW! read more

We had a fabulous experience with Taylor Connolly and Redfin.com.

I totally recommend RedFin for searching for homes online and as a realtor. We had a great experience with them when buying our first home in the DC area, and we got a $8K commission rebate which was awesome! The only difference between RedFin and a conventional realtor is that you kind of have to do the home searching on your own (you can do RedFin tours and Open houses), but when you have selected the home you want we found our RefFin agent was great. He helped us negotiate well and we were happy with the whole thing at the end. read more

This was my first home buying experience, and it was great! We preferred to be able to look at all the houses that fit our needs, and the Redfin app is the best out there to do just that. Everyone we dealt with, from the field agent to the real estate agent and even the scheduler was top notch. And, they had really great recommendations for an inspector, a mortgage officer, and an escrow agent. I couldn't have asked for a better experience. read more

We worked with Laura Christensen and she is absolutely the best agent ever. We found her when googling agents in our area and she has one of the highest rating and will say that she definitely deserves her high ratings. If we could give her a 10 stars, for perfection, trust me... we will gladly do that for her. She topped all the other agents we have worked with before since this transaction is not our first house, bought one many years ago. She is patient, very very knowledgeable and very very wise. It is her knowledge that get us closed on our dream house on our terms. She is simply awesome!!! We are her fan! read more

I made a appointment for a Redfin agent to come to look at my house to possibly list it. The agent came an hour late, and although she had some good ideas about staging, painting, etc., I NEVER received any follow up. She told me she would send me a listing contract and an email spelling out all her ideas about staging, etc. The email never came. The listing contract never came. I called a few times, and then gave up and had to go with another agent. read more

We put our home on For Sale By Owner and it populated into the Redfin website. A Redfin associate agent, Sean Caine, showed up as though to show the house to a client. He then wrote an unfavorable review of the home on their site. I called to find out why and the rep that I spoke to said that she didn't agree with this agent and would request that the review be taken down. She also agreed that it is one person's review and buyers may not see it the same way. This type of review doesn't serve any purpose for the buyers or us or Redfin, for that matter. How does Redfin anticipate any of their buyers even considering a walk through with that type of review. read more

Redfin is the best way to buy a house - hands down, no questions. If you want to buy a house on your terms, your time-table, without any pressure and get 1.5% of the sales price back towards closing - then Redfin is the way. My husband and I are first time home buyers and after spending one year looking - first with a "regular" non-redfin agent that dropped us after less than two weeks, letting us know that essentially he could tell this would take a long time and didn't think it was worth his while and then, refreshingly with Redfin. We toured with Redfin, at our convenience numerous times with many different agents who were knowledgeable about the areas and when it was time to make an offer, we worked with the best contract agent ever - Kendell Walker - who provided around the clock service, answering our every minute question and lead us safely and soundly to settlement on-time. All without any pressure what-so-ever. She had our best interests in mind - not the sale, because she doesn't get paid on whether we buy the house or not, but based on our final review of her. How refreshing and twenty first century; using "regular" realtors is truly archaic in this day and age. read more

I just sold my house with Redfin Redfin is good for people who are willing to do the legwork on their own. They market themselves as full service...they ARE in terms of doing everything that has to be done in order to sell your house. However, they aren't going to do some of the things that the traditional brokers (who are very good) do, such as tell you who to hire to get your house ready to sell (someone they trust), get you discounts with said people, etc. I did all that legwork for myself. I also made calls to the title company when there were issues, rather than my agent taking care of it (those issues weren't huge, and they would have been present regardless of broker given the situation). All in all, I would use them again because I value the $4400 I saved more than the extra work I had to do, and I also have friends and family who I could go to for advice throughout the process. If you aren't as willing to work, and you don't have knowledgeable people you trust to check with when making decisions (on sales price, negotiating, etc.), then I would probably go with a traditional broker. read more

My wife and I decided to explore Redfin to sell our condo, as we felt comfortable with the value of our home and comporables in the area and didn't need a lot of hand-holding other than filling out the contract/legal forms. We met with Tom Lewis, and he seemed perfectly capable. But he seemed to glance over many of the details in seeking to understand key features of our unit to develop a true CMA and thus a list price. He came back with a suggested list price of $399k, which was well under what we were thinking. We turned to other realtors and got a consensus that we could comfortably list at $430-440k. We decided not to use Redfin. Nevertheless, we were nervous, perhaps we were those buyers that overvalue their own home... Well, we settled close to $440k and had multiple offers after the first open house! While our initial interest in Redfin was to save money, had we gone with Tom's recommendation we would have left quite a bit of money on the table. read more

I just closed on a house last week on Capitol Hill with Redfin and it was a great experience. I really liked the "no pressure" approach; too many traditional agents wanted me to buy quickly, and more than I wanted to spend. With Redfin, I looked at my own pace (through open houses and home tours through Redfin). Once I found the right place, I placed an offer. In the DC market, I was concerned that Redfin might not be aggressive and responsive enough, but I was wrong. We turned around a contract in 2 days through a few rounds of negotiations, and we were able to do it without once stepping into a real estate office (it was all done over the phone, email, and internet). Leslie, our agent, stepped us through the process and I felt very informed and well represented. This is the third house that I have bought, and by far this was the easiest. Oh and I got back $8100 to go towards closing. That was awesome. Honestly, I don't think a traditional Realtor would have been worth that money. This is a great service! read more

Redfin rocks! If you are 1) computer literate and 2) not afraid to do a little research on your own then I highly recommend Redfin for buying a home in the Arlington area. It's not your grandma's real estate company of the 20th century - everything is done online and over the phone. However, the field agents and realtors are professionals, knowledgeable, and fun to talk to. They even gave us pizza and beer at their "first time home buyers workshop." I worked with Scott and Marshall, and had an amazing experience with both of them. They were quick to respond to any questions we had day or night, even Sundays. Redfin is probably ahead of the game when it comes to combining technology with personable staff. Don't sleep! Oh, and the agents DO NOT work on commission, and you get a refund for your purchase price that you can do whatever you want with (e.g. put it towards closing or just save it). read more

We turned to Redfin to sell our townhouse and purchase our single family home this spring/summer and we are really happy we did. We listed with Rheema and she was very easy to deal with and upfront on all fees and kept us updated and guided us through the whole process. As for the buying side, we went with Steve Popovitch and I can not speak highly enough about him. What an awesome agent he is!! Steve is very knowledgable about homes and the construction of them. We learned so much about houses and the inner workings of them by house shopping with him that we feel we were able to find an excellent home to purchase with confidence and have been throughly happy with the outcome. Steve is a very professional buyers agent, easy to get ahold of, quick to show homes, and made the whole buying process a positive experience. I have dealt with my fair share of realtors and he has, by far, been the best one yet! read more

My husband and I started out with another real estate agency, but after a terrible experience decided to give Redfin a try. A friend had used them previously and enjoyed the independence working with Redfin gave him. So, we made our first showing for when it was convenient for us and we were hooked. The showing agent wasnt pushy. She didnt try to highlight all the "great" things about the house. She really let us make up our own mind. It took us a few months, but we finally found the perfect house and got it for a great price! After our home was assessed we had actually made instant equity. And we attribute a lot of that to Redfin agents not constantly pushing us to put in offers and put in higher offers than we were comfortable with. We will recommend Redfin to all our friends. Oh, and the cash back was an added bonus!! We love Redfin and think that it is the ONLY way to buy a home!! read more

We are considering a move, have a job offer in hand. We loved the Redfin web app interface, but the team in the Boulder Colorado area is less than professional. First of all, we flew into town (from across the country) for a day of house hunting. We submitted a list for tours two days in advance. The morning of our visit, however, we were told that one of the houses declined the showing. It happens, right? Well, no. In this case, the reason why we lost the showing was because the agent failed to even request the showing until the morning of the date we were scheduled to see the houses. Of course, not every seller can immediately abandon their home to strangers. So, basically, we were unable to see one of the houses because the team (agent) failed to set the tour up at least 24 hours in advance (despite having 48 hours to do so). Then, when we were on the tour of the remaining homes, the agent assigned to us for the day got "dizzy" driving around in the mountains, and told us she was unable to show the rest of the homes. To her credit, mountain driving sucks... but STILL. Another agent DID get the homes rescheduled (thank you!! this was a great save to a potentially disastrous day) that the dizzy agent bailed on, but not until later in the day, and this forced us to cancel other plans important to our experience of the area for the day-- which was disappointing at best. The agent that ended up saving the day, Julia, was AWESOME-- loved her insights and expertise, and we would be delighted to work with her again... but given the overall experience, I just don't know if we would use Redfin for the purchase. All in all, I think Redfin could be great, but they really need to better vett the junior agents, and they need to take the tour scheduling more seriously, considering the feelings of the sellers (respectful of the 24 hour notice) AND respectful of out of town clients who have invested significant funds into a single day of house hunting. If you have time to waste on hunting houses, go with Refin. But if you're traveling in from out of town, hire someone from ReMax or Coldwell Banker. read more