Redfin, Trulia, Move sued for patent infringement
Little-known Traffic Information, LLC has just filed suit over its “System for Providing Traffic Information” patent. Defendants in the suit are Trulia, Redfin, Move Inc, Scvngr, Smarter Agent, Glympse, Bok Financial, Bank of Texas, Capital One Financial, Capital One Bank; and Layar.
GeekWire has extensively reported on the upcoming Eastern Texas district court case. The plaintiff has been in court regarding patents several times before, as plaintiff against several firms, and as defendant with Google suing over mapping functionality.
According to the lawsuit, “Traffic has been irreparably damaged to an extent not yet determined,” though few details are known.
Hitwise: Yahoo Real Estate solidly on top
Once again, as of October 30, Yahoo Real Estate is the ranking leader for online visits, jumping from a reported 5.87 percent at the end of September to the current 8.79 percent. FrontDoor.com rather quickly advanced to number 9, Realtor.com picked up a tiny bit of market share, Zillow lost some but retained its number 3 position, while Zillow gained a bit and stayed in 4th place.
Redfin upgrades to capture short sales
Online real estate brokerage Redfin just announced its expansion into Phoenix, Ariz., and a major listing service upgrade that includes in-home listing consultations, online capture of tour feedback, seller traffic monitoring of the site, hosted open houses and private home tours. In seven major metro U.S. markets, Redfin has just launched short sale support after a two-year hiatus from the service.
Customer service and agent accountability drove the changes. Now one agent can now handle home pricing, tours, open houses, weekly updates, local marketing and negotiations. Prior to listing the properties, each agent has a team of handypersons, gardeners and stagers, for example, to put the best face on the property.
There is no additional charge to Redfin listing clients for the upgraded features.
“Because we’ve built a Web site for home buyers, our brokerage business has overwhelmingly focused on home buyers,” said Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman, in the announcement. “Now we’re trying to change that, first by using the local teams we put together last winter to deliver a higher level of personal service. And second by developing online tools so our customers always know how their properties are competing in the market. Long-term, the reason people are going to list with us isn’t just because of our online presence, but because we have the best local agents. We’re finally getting to the size where we can be local in many of the markets we serve.”
Redfin launches real estate listings in Atlanta
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.
Redfin expands to NY, traffic grows 300 percent
Online brokerage Redfin is expanding into New York. Westchester, Long Island, and Queens are all available, although Manhattan and Brooklyn still remain beyond its reach. In California, the site now covers Sacramento and the Central Valley. Other existing markets include Boston, Chicago, Washington DC, Baltimore, the San Francisco Bay Area, and of course Redfin’s home base of Seattle.
At the same time, the company announced it is adding up to 200 additional data fields for Realtors to use. Depending on the area, Redfin will now list property details such as price history, the sellers’ mortgage history, cumulative days on the market, lot square footage, and will display addresses on a map.
Redfin says that traffic grew 300 percent last year to 1.6 million unique visitors. ComScore is more cautious, estimating only 324,000 U.S. visitors in March, 2009.
Trulia adds price reduction tool
One more sign of the difficulties in today’s real estate market. Aggregator Trulia.com has added a price reduction tool. Competitors Redfin and ZipRealty already have such functionality.
Trulia explained the move on its blog: “We know from search behavior on Trulia.com that house hunters are seeking value in today’s market. If a home has a ‘price reduction’ it may or may not necessarily be ‘a value,’ but this is a tool that users have been demanding, and today — we delivered.”
The price reduction feature is available as a filter in Trulia’s search box.
To back up the need for the tool, Trulia in a press release added that 27 percent of homes currently on the market in the U.S. have experienced at least one price cut. The press release details price reduction figures for 15 markets.
In the U.K. RightMove.co.uk is launching an e-magazine that showcases properties with recent price reductions of 2 percent or more. It will be called Property Deal Weekly.
- Mobile Drives Christmas Sales
- McClatchy Reports Earnings Growth
- [Adicio] Jobs Where You Might Meet a Mate
- New Study from Polk and Autotrader.Com Reveals Top Reasons Luxury Buyers Stay Loyal
- News Corporation Names Lex Fenwick Chief Executive Officer of Dow Jones & Company
- AOL Selects Right Media Exchange as Display Advertising Platform for Ad Agreement
- DealerHD Behavioral Chat Powered By Contact At Once!
- The New York Times Company Reports 2011 Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year Results
- CARS.COM WORKSHOP AT NADA SHARES MOBILE CONSUMER INSIGHTS, MOBILE STRATEGIES FOR DEALER SALES AND SERVICE PROCESSES
- Best and Worst Super Bowl Commercials Ranked in Real-Time by the Public on “Brand Bowl”
