Redfin Reviews

Pros

Very smart people, motivated and driven by more than a paycheck. Energized environment, always moving, fast-paced. Great benefits! Motivated to do the right thing, always, and absolutely committed to customers 100%.

Cons

We value failing fast, but we move too quickly at times. Communication channels could improve. We'd benefit from a little more structure across the board so people know what to expect, how to grow, and how to be successful.

Advice to Senior Management

Slow down a little. Take the time necessary to do things right. We can fail fast, but let's at least take the time to think about all of the details & impacts of decisions we make before taking risks. Then actually address how we've failed so we don't repeat the same mistakes.

Pros

-Outstanding website and mobile apps that put more power into the consumer's hands
-Free lunches
-Innovative company that is really changing how real estate is bought and sold
-If you're an engineer, the perks are in the comp package. You have more flexibility in your schedule and the work-life balance is pretty good compared to other startups.
-If you're in real estate, the perks are the company provided computer, phone, etc. - everything needed to do your job, the steady paycheck, and the benefits. They also pay for all your memberships and subscriptions if you're full time which is helpful because they can be expensive.

Cons

There is a lack of productive collaboration between engineering and real estate which sometimes leads to counterproductive features and releases. Management has very little real estate experience, if any, prior to working at Redfin and does not know how to motivate their staff. If you're in real estate, the comp package is not very good but the stress is very high and it's normal to work all the time.

Advice to Senior Management

Ideas and feedback seem to fall on deaf ears. Consider hiring experienced, top talent from outside the organization who can really drive revenue and motivate the real estate team.

Pros

camaraderie, hackathons, catered lunches, great speakers at brownbugs, transparency by leadership team, challenging work, balanced hours

Cons

half the engineering team is in SF, so some collaboration by phone is needed, but manageable

Pros

enthusiastic coworkers, a company mission that's easy to get excited about, transparent management, great benefits, lots of growth opportunities, frequent performance feedback, catered lunches at offices in Seattle & SF.

Cons

company goals are occasionally a moving target, it can also be difficult sometimes to coordinate between dev and REOps since they are such different worlds

Advice to Senior Management

Clear, consistent communication across the entire organization is important. I think we could do a bit of a better job of keeping everyone on the same page across dev & REOps.

Pros

Absolute flexibility in your schedule. Based off of Google Calender. Just close off the day and its yours. You really just unlock doors and deflect all other questions to the agent. Agents work off of salary. Website is AWESOMNE! Team atmosphere.

Cons

33% of your tours cancel. Customers are unqualified and uneducated. Each client rates your performance and the these NPS scores are important. A few bad ones and you are fired. As a Field Agent you receive no respect, no benefits, and no communication from above. You are used at the agents request to run errands. As a Field Agent you want to sell your Agents in hopes that the client buys with RedFin, but the agents are overworked, underpaid, and often can't be bothered. In additon, they don't meet the clients or see the properties. As a Field Agent, there is no chance of promotion to Agent, as 12 closed deals are required, which you can't do as a Field Agent.

Advice to Senior Management

Agents need to meet the clients and see the properties. Field Agents are the most important resource you have (apart from the engineers). They are the face of the company. People are already sceptical about using a website to purchase a $600,000 property. You must invest more in your field agents and then baby step them into agents by having them work on deals with Agents and then close some on their own (supervised). With no chance of a promotion or pay increase, you get what what you pay for.

Pros

Coworkers are intelligent and passionate
Employees get lots of responsibility
The company is doing great things to disrupt the traditional real estate model

Cons

Managers are not trained to make career guidance a priority
Expectations are unreasonably high and not communicated properly
Feedback is hard to come by

Advice to Senior Management

Invest in your managers and your employees by training managers to selflessly provide career guidance to their reports, and by giving employees the constructive feedback and time they need to flourish.

Pros

the potential of Redfin is it's most redeeming quality. Getting a refund out the realtor's pocket and into the pocket of the consumer might be okay, except that it's unfair to the realtors who do all the work. but the potential exists for people who don't have closing costs to buy, so this solution would fit for those people.

Cons

No one at Redfin has a clue about real estate. they have no professional background whatsoever in real estate. You've got a CEO with arrogance not only toward professional realtors and brokers, but arrogance as a whole toward all of this staff that didn't come with him from his previous software company. then you've got a arrogant middle managers who are just like Glenn - arrogant.

Advice to Senior Management

My advice is for the VC company funding Glenn. He has no idea what he's doing.

Pros

The benefits are amazing. Great insurance for employees and their entire family is entirely free. Catered lunches. Kitchen is stocked with beer and snacks.

Cons

Redfin as a whole is extremely unorganized. Training is severely lacking for all real estate positions (coordinators, agents and field agents). I was thrown into my position with almost no training and expected to learn on the job, putting client's real estate transactions in jeopardy.

Employees are overworked and underpaid. I handled the work of at least 3 people and was not paid for all of my overtime. The work load was much more than I should have been doing, we were short staffed all of the time.

Management is unreliable, making a lot of promises that they cannot keep. Glenn (owner) and Scott (VP of Real Estate) talk a lot about their "open door" policy during the interview and orientation/training. In reality, if you do try to come to one of them with your ideas/concerns/problems, they don't want to hear it.

There are two separate parts to the Redfin company, the real estate team and the engineers. I can only speak as to how it was working on the real estate team. An engineer may have an entirely different experience.

Advice to Senior Management

Please don't advertise an open door policy between senior management and all employees, if you aren't going to honor it.

Managers of a real estate team should really be licensed real estate professionals or at least someone with real estate experience.

Take note of the work load and stress level of your employees.

Pros

Promotions within the company are easy to come by, The Dev staff seems to have flexible hours, Good life to work ratio. Free lunches. Fun Staff.

Cons

Promotions within the company are given to those that 'try hard' and have 'spirit'. This makes it difficult when making real world decisions when no one actually has real world experience or leadership abilities. You're considered senior if you worked there for 3 years.

The staff questions and concerns are rarely taken seriously. There seems to be no strategic thinking as the company grows and more markets get added. This is making the staff nervous. The heads are too busy having meetings and making plans without any input from core staff.

Advice to Senior Management

Glenn needs to address where leadership lacks and create a real atmosphere where it's just not coming down from the top.

Pros

Co-workers are wonderful and have a common bond

Cons

Management acts like management when start-ups should be flat orgs

Advice to Senior Management

Glenn needs to hand over the reins to more humble, but secure leadership