Online real estate broker Redfin just expanded to Georgia, organized its real estate agents into local teams, and began alerting customers by e-mail as listings sell in their neighborhoods. Redfin employs its own agents, with a wage package that includes a customer satisfaction bonus in addition to salary. There’s no commission plan.

The tenth market for Redfin, Atlanta is the third local launch for 2009. The Georgia expansion includes the metro towns of Alpharetta, Buckhead, Perimeter, Suwanee and Woodstock, as well as the east portion of Cobb County.  This latest expansion adds 30 percent more listings to the Redfin site.

Customers who buy a home through Redfin get half the commission refunded at closing. In West Cobb, Gwinnett, Peachtree City and Lake Lanier areas, where Redfin does not employ its own agents, the online brokerage works with partner agents who agree to provide Redfin’s level of service and transparency. The refund from partner agents is 15 percent of the commission.

“Redfin’s arrival in Atlanta is a huge win for consumers, who get more information about both properties and real estate agents, and new ways to use the Internet to get better customer service,” said James Marks, former broker, and Redfin’s Atlanta market manager, in the announcement.  

Redfin is also organizing its real estate agents nationwide into local teams consisting of an agent, a coordinator and several field agents. The agent is responsible for the customer’s success from start to finish, and for team management. The coordinator assists the agent in scheduling tours and completing paperwork for closings. Field agents provide prospective buyers with short-notice access to homes for sale.  Redfin pairs its agents up, so clients can be serviced seven days a week.  In the past 90 days, customer service staff was doubled.

“This model gives each client the intimacy of a small team who knows the customer by name, while still offering more resources every day of the week than any one agent can deliver on his own,” said Scott Nagel, Redfin VP of real estate operations, in the announcement.

Redfin’s service is now available in the metropolitan areas of Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, 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.

Here’s more from the Redfin blog.