Redfin Expands to Oregon, Donating Commissions to Charities

SEATTLE, Feb. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Online real estate broker Redfin today expanded to the metropolitan area of Portland, Oregon, entering for the first time a market that outlaws commission refunds to home-buyers. To comply with the law, Redfin's Oregon customers can apply part of Redfin's commission to closing costs if the lender allows it, and ask Redfin to donate the rest to a local charity. As part of the Portland launch, Redfin also released a new version of the site that allows consumers to x-out listings on its map.

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To facilitate commission donations, Redfin established partnerships with four Oregon charities:

• Oregon Food Bank
• Shriners Hospitals for Children Portland
• SOLV, an Oregon environmental non-profit  
• Habitat for Humanity, Portland Metro East

Redfin will also work to overturn the Oregon law prohibiting a real estate agent from refunding his commission to the home-buyer from whose funds the commission is drawn. Just last month, New Jersey repealed a similar anti-rebate law; under pressure from the U.S. Department of Justice, Kentucky, New Mexico, Montana and West Virginia recently overturned similar anti-rebate restrictions. Nine other states besides Oregon still maintain anti-rebate laws.

Redfin brings to Oregon its trademark combination of customer service, candor and value. Redfin draws customers to its website by publishing data that most other Oregon sites lack, such as when a property was originally listed and at what prices. Visitors to Redfin.com can use Redfin's online tools to ask an agent for service: answering questions, arranging home tours, preparing offers and listing homes.

In Vancouver and most of Portland, Redfin employs its own agents, paying salary, benefits and a customer-satisfaction bonus rather than commissions. For home-buyers, Redfin agents usually apply 50% of the commission to closing costs if the lender permits or to charity. For a $500,000 home, this amount is typically $7,500.

In the area of Portland east and south of Interstate-205 and in Salem and Eugene, Redfin works with partner agents who agree to provide Redfin's level of service and transparency. The savings for customers of partner agents is 15% of the commission, worth $2,250 on the purchase of the same $500,000 home. As with Redfin's direct service, customers can direct the savings to closing costs if the lender permits or to charity.

Both Redfin and its partner agents can deliver industry-leading customer service more efficiently because Redfin reaches new customers exclusively through its website, eliminating sales and marketing costs. To measure customer satisfaction, the company surveys every agent's customers, deal or no deal. Redfin then publishes the survey responses on the agent's online profile, giving customers unprecedented information about that agent's past performance.

Redfin's expansion to Oregon benefits consumers beyond the reach of Redfin agents and Redfin partner agents. In Western Oregon and Southwest Washington, the website offers search as far north as Longview, Washington and as far south as Myrtle Creek. From Florence to the California border, Redfin also covers the Oregon coast.

With the Oregon expansion, Redfin increases the number of listings active on its website by 8%. Portland is the company's 11th market overall, and the second it has opened in the past three months.

"Redfin's Portland launch is a harbinger of change in Oregon," said Jeff Bale, Redfin's Portland market manager. Prior to joining Redfin, Jeff was a local Portland broker for three years, and a minister before that. "We can help Oregon consumers make more informed real estate decisions, all while contributing to the communities into which they're moving."

About Redfin

Redfin is the real estate industry's first online brokerage, combining a customer-focused team of real estate agents with online tools for making the process of buying or selling a home easy. Redfin's agents handle every facet of a transaction, including tours, pricing analyses, negotiations, inspections and closings. Redfin is the only major search site to feature listings direct from broker databases as well as for-sale-by-owner and foreclosure properties from across the Internet. The company pays its agents customer-satisfaction bonuses, not commissions, and surveys every client, publishing each survey alongside the agent's complete deal history. Redfin's service is available in the metropolitan areas of Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Washington DC, Baltimore, New York's Long Island and Westchester County as well as most of California, including the San Francisco Bay Area, Southern California and Sacramento. To follow our daring exploits, go to blog.redfin.com or our Twitter feed @redfin.

SOURCE Redfin