Redfin: One more nail in the coffin of the wealthy Bay Area real estate agent
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Redfin, the online real estate company that wants to let you buy a home and undercut real estate agent fees, has raised $8 million in venture capital — and, as mentioned before, is expanding to the San Francisco Bay Area.
There are a host of new Web-only real estate sites out there, but these guys are actually putting people on the ground, including four in the Bay Area (not many, but it is understandable for a young company, and especially since most of the activity will be happening online anyway).
Redfin is based in Seattle. John Cook, the leading blogger about venture capital stuff up there, has more details in this post.
Investors include Madrona Venture Group, BEV Capital, The Hillman Co. and Vulcan Capital, the investment arm of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.
We at the Mercury News wrote a piece a couple of weeks ago about the threat Redfin poses to traditional real estate agents, by helping you pocket two-thirds of the commission that normally goes to them.
We first mentioned Redfin a year ago, when they were early to combine satellite maps and MLS homes data.
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About the Author, Matt Marshall
Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.
