Redfin

I’ve dealt with Redfin agents and have universally found them to be completely devoid of knowledge for the market they pretend to know (Palos Verdes). They try to be everything for everyone in any area and fail miserably. Any buyer would do much better to contact a listing agent directly rather than subject themselves to a salaried agent that knows nothing of the product they are selling you.

We can’t say enough great things about Redfin and our agent, Michelle Zabukovec, and her team that included Lucy Elliott. The level of service we received throughout our first home buying process was outstanding. Michelle was always responsive to our endless questions and truly went above and beyond to support us through a complicated process. She even took the time to follow up a few times after we closed – amazing! We highly recommend Michelle and Redfin. Thanks again for everything!

We used Redfin as our buying agent when we bought our first home.
The experience is slightly different than with a standard realtor, as Redfin agents are not paid by commission. Instead, Redfin receives the standard realtors commission, and the agents are paid a salary, and are subsequently bonused if they receive positive reviews from the client.
We had our agent who booked tours and showed us properties, and during the transaction we had a transaction coordinator who held our hand through the process.
I found both of them to be very knowledgeable, and I would not hesitate to recommend them to friends and family.
The only reason I am not rating 5 stars is because during the home search process, we received very little in the way of recommendations and help with finding new listings, and we had to do a lot of the footwork online ourselves. Aside from that, it was a great experience.

We sold our home and bought a Condo– both with Redfin. I have already written a review about that very successful experience. But I found Redfin management takes their role in helping their clients well beyond the close of Escrow. John Venti, Los Angeles Manager has been unbelievable. Seven months after we had already been living in our Condo, we experienced a very serious problem with a provider that had been recommended to us by Redfin. We were beside ourselves when someone suggested maybe our Real Estate Agent would be willing to fight for us. We were skeptical but we thought we should try because we had found their previous work on our behalf so satisfying. We felt it best to go to the ‘boss’ for the help we needed. I found the appropriate person on-​line, where there are many names and addresses and phone numbers of Redfin Associates, unlike so many customer service type businesses where you can find no way to contact them. I contacted John Venti, Los Angeles area Manager, to ask for a personal meeting. He immediately invited me to come in the very next day at any time convenient for me. When I met with John, I found him to be very warm and welcoming and reassuring. I explained to him what the problem was and why I thought he might be able to help us. John said he couldn;t make any promises as to the result, but that he would do everything in his power to get us the result we were hoping for. When I returned home an hour later, I received a phone call from the Company we were having difficulty with, saying that they were ordering another look at our problem. Obviously John had already been in touch with them the minute I left his office.
The process continued and where there might have been only some partial satisfaction, John continued to press the company to do the «right thing», using his influence with this company until finally, the ultimate result was achieved! We couldn’t believe it. He accomplished a complete turn-​around by the company we were challenging and the solution of our problem has already begun and will be completed, to our complete satisfaction and beyond what we could have hoped for. All this time, John continued to stay in touch with us, encouraging us and reassuring us. As a representative of the Redfin Firm and their customer-​first philosophy, John has shown such graciousness and courtesy as he lent us Redfin’s unequivocal support.
We can recommend this wonderful man, John Venti, and the Redfin Real Estate philosophy to anyone planning to buy or sell a home!

My review is for the app. It sounds like an awesome deal to use Redfin agents but we already had one.
With the previous purchase of our house in Corona I had used Zillow which was awesome at times but other times disappointing when they newly post a home that was already in escrow. After purchasing and reselling our 4 bedroom home that i never moved intos. (I realized Corona was to far from family and friends with just the kids and I) I decided to try a different app to see of it can save us the disappointment zillow had given.
Although our agent sent us listing every other day. I was eager to find a home and was searching everyday, day and night as buying a home can be very competitive. I saw houses I was interested in sold within a week or 2 so I knew I had to act fast.
Redfin refreshes their post every 15 minutes so I am able to find some homes before my agent. There was a few outdated post like zillow but the majority I was interested in was not. It also posted the status change of the houses pretty quickly when we went into escrow which is great so other buyers know to keep looking instead of getting their hopes up like we once did.
It also gives you information on how much tax was for the home, last price it was sold or for sale, schools and ratings. All important and helpful.
I would recommend you list the search in order of least days listed so that you get the fresh houses on the market before others do. (^_​^) So excited to start this new chapter with my babies. Will miss living just a stroll from the beach but would definitely recommend this app if you’re on the hunt for a new home (^_​^)

Field agents are nice. They are good at visiting homes. Agents are bad at dealing with opposing realtors. They miss important things and don’t really fix them when they come up. Not responsive. You have to keep following up all the time. Good web page, but Zillow is pretty good too. Good idea, but not done well. Lots of realtors out there that will do a good job.

Just sold our home to a fantastic couple, but their ‘group’ of agents were deeply disappointing. Aside from the absolutely sub-​par communication skills, one of the agents was inexplicably rude, aggressive, and adolescent around our agent. Talking over our agent to specifically disrupt the conversation, blatantly ignoring them, and refusing to speak with our agent led us to believe: Redfin is compiled of 5-​year old children who didn’t get their capri-​sun, but warm milk instead.
If you’re someone who likes having a phone call returned promptly, email responded to, and an agent who actually cares: I would highly suggest disregarding any and all benefits Redfin tries to up-​sell you on for their services, or lack there of.
Your sanity, integrity, and self-​respect will be retained if you go with an actual agent, not a group of grimy used-​car salesmen.
Save yourself the trouble and move on, you will not be disappointed.

The good: we bought a home! Technology is excellent. Home tours are fantastic.
The bad: you do so much work that it’s like not even having a real estate agent to advocate for you. We could have kept the entire buyer’s commission for ourselves – that’s how much work it was.
Overall, we had a mediocre experience with Redfin. Our field agent who toured homes with us was FANTASTIC. Our agent, less so. He was generally friendly and seemed to care for his clients, but we encountered several issues.
First, he wasn’t very responsive. Sometimes it would take days to get a response. This improved when we talked to him about it, but it certainly still paled in comparison with other Redfin staff.
Second, our agent was somewhat out of touch with current market conditions. Coming from a very data-​driven perspective, as allowed by Redfin’s great website, our agent only seemed interested in getting us to bid as high as possible (maybe to close the deal faster?). We found out from the opposing realtor’s counteroffer that we are glad we did not listen.
Third, our agent didn’t take initiative in dealing with the other side. For example, we were told by a field agent to ask the sellers if there was a special assessment; I asked the agent if he could do so and he said that I could ask the sellers if I wanted, but didn’t do so. I had to do it myself and discovered there was a substantial special assessment! After finding out about that, the agent did send a few emails to try to resolve it. But overall, there were times when I lost confidence in his advocacy. For example, the sellers were able to jerk us around with their timing by not trying to work cooperatively on anybody’s schedule. Yet, our agent never gave them firm deadlines, even though we asked him to do so. He didn’t assert our interests or even his own. In the end, we are happy that everything was shepherded through. To be fair, our agent did have the experience and patience to work through a deal that had difficult sellers.
This was only our experience. The agent seemed to have better reviews for more expensive properties on which he worked, but another review for a less expensive condo like ours seemed uncannily similar. The concept is great, but hopefully the execution has improved since we used them.

Redfin’s Dana Murphy goes above and beyond for her clients.
We recently purchased a bank-​owned property in Ventura County after looking at dozens of properties in Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley and Agoura Hills with Redfin’s Dana Murphy. She was incredibly helpful, always willing to accommodate our schedule and used her personal connections to help push paperwork along at the seller’s end. After our offer was accepted, Jodi Pestello joined the team to help follow up on paperwork and keep us on track for the move in date but Dana continued to support us as well. We would strongly recommend Dana Murphy and will definitely work with her in the future.

My five-​star rating is for John Venti (and his team). John is really nice and informative and really means it when he says he’s there for you every step of the way.
We first met him at a Redfin home-​buying presentation and you could tell right away that he was really passionate about his work and about helping others. I’d seen all his reviews before the presentation and I could see why he had had so much success with Redfin. We decided to work with John after attending his presentation. Our experience with Redfin was great because of John and his team. After we closed on our home, he let us know that our relationship didn’t end when we got the keys. If we ever needed anything, he was just a phone call away.
Fast forward several weeks, and we’re in the midst of remodeling with an awful contractor. My husband remembered what John said after we closed on our home and decided to give him a call to ask about his experience with contractors and for some advice on how to deal with them. He understood our concern and wanted to make sure we were well taken care of so he met with us and our contractor to serve as our mediator/​negotiator. I was very grateful for this, especially knowing John was really busy in the peak of the summer home-​buying season.
John Venti is the best, and he proves that Redfin is all about customer service and putting them first.

We found a real estate agent for life. Janice went above and beyond what we expected from an agent and this is our second purchase. I mean from the commission refund that we got from purchasing the home and the excellent service we got from Janice whatever she’s getting she needs a raise. The duo of Janice and Lucy (coordinator), were on point since day one. Although I had a couple stressful delays during escrow, this team gave me the assurances and daily updates to keep my mind at ease. One thing I like to point out is that they are available anytime I had a question or concern. Emails and phone calls were either answered right then and there or within a few minutes. First time home buyer, moving up or purchasing another home if your looking for the A Team, look no further, Janice Sadler and Lucy Elliott will be there hand in hand from start to finish and well beyond that.

The CEO of Redfin commented on my previous review, proving this company’s negligence to care about their clients. Instead of fixing the mistakes their employees make, they try to make excuses for them and make up ridiculous stories to cover their unprofessionalism.
Insinuating that I expected our buyers to get a new loan is absurd. The only one who brought up getting a different loan was Redfin when Aviva Lomeli and her manager, both tried to convince us to get a conventional loan instead of the VA Loan that we already had. For the appraisal, Aviva should have filed the proper form for the appraiser to include all of the upgrades in our house. Instead she said that there was nothing she could do and only wanted to finish a quick sale on our house; showing that she is either too incompetent or too lazy to do her job in representing her client in the best possible way. Aviva had no right to share information that she should have not been sharing with the buyer’s agent. She did not have our best interest in mind and as a result sabotaged this whole deal.
He obviously does not want to learn from this experience like he said. And just like when I complained to the company about Aviva’s actions, he and his associates did not care.

So currently my fiancé and I are looking to buy a home in the Ventura County. At first we were using Zillow (the other housing website) but we were finding a lot of their listings were outdated and most of the houses we were interested were already in Escrow! (No!)
So when we found Redfin, I think I fell in love (sorry babe! if you’re reading this, you’re always my first love! haha) I am pretty much addicted to Redfin. The website is super user friendly making filtering and advancing searches easy and assessable. Apparently they update their website every 15 mins! (Don’t know how true that is but still)
We have our own agent which we found before using Redfin. Otherwsie, we might have found our agent from Redfin site themselves. They seem informative and reliable. Also, Redfin gets a 10 star for hosting informative events with free food and drinks at upscale restaurants. We went to one today actually and it was quite useful! Will be looking out for those until we finally purchase a home. Great job Redfin! Keep it up! Love love love!

We worked with Sylva Khayalian and her support team. She was awesome. She and her team helped us every step of the way. We are SO impressed. We also loved the use of Docusign to sign all the necessary documents over the internet. Two thumbs up for Redfin!

After trying to put 3 offers that did not go through with another broker agent, a friend suggested that I should start shopping for a strong buyer agent in this very tough buyer market. I checked a few agents. Then one day I got a Redfin first time home buying class invite. I was thinking I got nothing to lose by just attending the class. I’m glad I did — I was immediately impressed with John Vendi’s presentation. He is so knowledgeable, genuine, and most importantly has a passion for what he does. He stressed the importance of writing a letter to the property owner from his own experience. This is something my previous agent has never told me.
In my first tour with John Vendi, I saw a house I really like, which became my first home today. John gave me lots of guidance throughout the process. At one point, there’s another property coming into market that I wanted to pursue instead of the one under escrow already, and timing was critical at the moment. John continued to work on my case by providing me lots of advice although he was really sick at that time. We had an emergency two days before closing regarding termite clearance that would have caused closing delay (which would make my locked rate expire). John assured me that he’s on top of it and will get it taken care of. He worked with my lender and the termite company and he did it !!! We closed just in time for me to get the locked rate. I’m so happy I made the right decision to have John as my agent. I wouldn’t have got the house if it were not for him.

Redfin.com’s easy to peruse and understand all the information of a property. That’s what makes it my go to search engine for real estate — additionally, it’s what helped me find my first home.
I was extremely green in the process… Until i linked up with realtor Kory Jackson, whom I chose based on his reviews and smiling headshot. Kory began leading me through what would become the next two years of my real estate education. I had a very small budget (and very loud family input) but Kory was extremely patient and kept helping me pound the pavement to my dream home — which ended up being a bank owned short sale. (I wouldn’t wish short sale hell on my enemy but if you’ve got Kory navigating you’ll be in good hands)
It took almost 2 years from the day I found it on
to the day Kory handed me the keys and I have to say it couldn’t have happened without him. We had a lot of drama from the seller & seller’s realtor, the bank, and red tape in general but Kory was always there, offering guidance and advice on how we get to the goal line.
Once the place was mine and Kory and I no longer needed to have daily chats on what troubles were brewing in short sale land I went through a bit of withdrawal from having him in my life :) It’s been 15 months since I moved in and I still can’t believe it happened. Can’t thank him enough!

I would give 10 stars if I could.
Having just listed and sold my condo through Redfin, I can honestly say that I had the best experience. Prior to listing with Eric Tan at Redfin, I had listed with another discount agent who took a very very small percentage but did absolutely nothing, including open houses because he said they were only for neighbors and looky-​loos.
After listing with that agent for 2 solid months and having lots of people coming by to look, but no offers and no feedback on why from that agent, I decided to give Redfin a try. Redfin provided a TON of helpful hints on how to best stage my condo to make the most of the space. After the first open house on that first week, we received a great offer and went right into escrow.
Our agent Eric and all of his support staff were nothing but pleasant, knowledgeable, and provided great assistance in facilitating our sale.
I would HIGHLY recommend Eric Tan and Redfin to anyone wanting to list their property.

Not much time to write a review because thanks to a guy named John Venti at Redfin, we’re MOVING INTO OUR FIRST HOME!
Redfin offered a free class (at a very nice restaurant by the way with full on dinner!) about how to buy property in this current market run by Redfin’s John Venti. I was skeptical as it was «free» and didn’t figure I would learn much but wifey and I went anyway. The class was crowded but as we got going I realized this guy really knows what he’s talking about, and his advice was spot on about how to approach buying in a seller’s market where we’re competing with all cash offers. In fact, we liked John so much we decided right then and there we wanted him to be our buyer’s agent, and asked him to represent us.
I’m not the kind of guy who gushes, but this guy REALLY got the job done and did just a fantastic job negotiating for our dream property. I truly don’t think we would have gotten it without him. He was always available, and because he is both smart and friendly the selling agents wanted to work with him. He came to our open house with us, which showed the sellers we were serious. And negotiated some intricate back and forth that ended up helping both parties… I cannot say enough about our positive experience with John Venti and Redfin. And the kicker? We got a SIZEABLE check from Redfin at closing… I don’t know how they do it, but it’s a business model everyone should be using.
And it wasn’t just John; Lisa Diaz, their coordinator was spectacular! Always available, day or night and always spot-​on with the answers, I was seriously impressed with her. She kept us informed of what we needed to do and what to expect the whole way through, no guessing games. simply stellar service. OK, I’m gushing now. I can’t speak for others at Redfin, but all the folks we dealt with there were top notch, and I will NEVER regret going with them. I truly believe we would not have gotten this house (two on a lot actually with a ¼ acre lot that looks like a park!) without the help of John Venti, Lisa Diaz and the rest of the good folks at Redfin. We very seriously thank you!

My personal experience with this company is very bad!
Redfin appears to employ highly unprofessional «realtors» who make unwarranted remarks to buyers about units that simply and solely reflect their personal taste (or probably marketing strategy) and harm sellers, while not truly helping buyers either. One such realtor would be Aviva Lomeli. Stay away from this company, or at least from that agent. Redfin tries to go for the ultra low and tries to make units look bad, so that they can come back and snatch them for a lower price; that seems to be the way they operate. Not enough people seem to have picked up on that behavior yet.
I will never let any of them into my home again!

***UPDATE*** I bought my home with Redfin, Thank you Michelle Zabukovec!
ADDICTED!!! I am currently in the process of looking to buy a home in the South Bay area. I personally know someone who purchased their home through Redfin and they had a great experience. Redfin is extremely easy to use, and the app for iPhone makes home searching convenient. I began using Redfin a few months ago and I am really pleased with the service.
How it works (my understanding)
1. You search for MLS listed homes on their website or app
2. If you find homes you are interested in viewing, you add them to a tour (tours are scheduled based on your availability with Redfin agents)
3. If you like a home, your agent helps you submit your offer.
4. You receive a portion of the commission back! (amount depends on price of the home)
I was previously working with a realtor but found that I was doing the majority of the searching myself through the MLS, Trulia, and Redfin. So why would I let a Realtor take the commission when I’m doing the work?
I am currently working with Redfin Agent Michelle Zabukovec and she is very attentive and a pleasure to work with. She responds quickly to emails, no matter what time it is, and she is very patient (my work schedule is very hectic).
Redfin is AWESOME and I recommend it over traditional home buying 100%. I cannot wait to find the perfect home for myself with Redfin!