Redfin Employee Reviews about "manager"

Pros

They give their Product Manager interns awesome and impactful projects. The coworkers treat you like a real PM and respect your decisions. You often make great friends within your team.

Cons

I'd say a product management internship is more stressful than a dev internship: you get less hand-holding, you must meet deadlines, you have a larger responsibility.

Pros

See impact almost immediately; contributions are recognized; supportive manager and peers; work-life balance

Cons

Sometimes the division of responsibilities is not quite clear, but it's reasonable for a fast-growing company.

Pros

You will receive medical benefits.

Cons

Don't know what goes on at the Seattle Headquarters but locally the managers are simply people who have been there the longest--they have no experience in managing people. Redfin is now based on the traditional agent model where the agent will need to see the client through entire transaction--without the commission. You will likely have 30 clients to manage in the 2014 market.

Pros

Benefits, setting up your own schedule, constant leads. my manager was awesome and very helpful. Good technology and fast deal system to write contracts quickly.

Cons

Overly worked and underpaid. In a competitive market, it is hard to make a living without touring nonstop every day, even then I was only earning around 900 every 15 days which is not enough to live comfortably and be able to pay rent. On top of that add all the money you spend on gas and the low commissions, it is just not worth it. You would think the leads would compensate, but many clients just use it as a touring website, with customers touring even though they are already working with a realtor. Flooded investor leads.

Pros

Health benefits, expenses reimbursed,

Cons

Surveys rule at Redfin. Poor quality customers that are given the ability to take away a bonus with a survey of 7 or lower. Unqualified managers that lack knowledge of the sales process and the law 'use best practices' 'contact an attorney' standard answers to questions. Poor training, training sites don't work, trainers that don't have the knowledge. Metric driven company, that are very difficult to attain, constant changes to the tools, agents were hired with the team atmosphere however, majority of the paperwork is now handled by the agents directly instead of the coordinators. Will work you to death

Pros

Great benefits and I loved my coworkers.

Cons

Lack of leader ship and vision. Managers with little to no experience trying to tell you how to do your job.

Pros

Many pros on Redfin. One of the best feature is that you have a direct say on when you want to work. The technology Redfin is second to none. You can let the tour coordinators know when you have availability to work by simply updating your weekly calendar on your Agent tools website. As an independent contractor you don't have a boss overlooking your every move. Fabulous place to learn the real estate business from the ground up. You get to interact with customers and also do some of the other tasks that traditional real estate agents do. Tasks like attending inspections, completing inspection reports, doing open-houses, and interacting with other local real estate agents from traditional firms. For someone who has not being in the real estate world this is like getting pay to go to school or on the job training. Other perks on this job include being influential to customers. Customers look upon you as a pillar of knowledge. You can easily refer these clients to contractors, lenders, and other businesses. If you crave popularity in your area this job will do that for you. I've once attended a showing on a house from one of the area's top producing real estate agent who immediately recognize me and said "I know who you are." Overall if you want to test out if real estate is the right field for you to be in and you don't want to risk not having a paycheck until your first deal closes then Redfin is the place for you. As an independent contractor you get to experience the whole home buying or selling transaction from start to finish.

Cons

Just like the pros, there are quite a few cons. I will try to hit as many as possible since I know that when I started I had an idea on what I was getting myself into due to other reviews posted on Glassdoor. First, the main cons a new associate agent needs to be concern with is the income. The income you earn at Redfin as an associate agent depends on three factors; 1. the area you are in 2. the area management and team lead 3. the time of the year. Let's start by saying that if you are in an area of growth this may not be good because there are not too many customers who want to tour homes or even know the Redfin way. If your area has plenty of homes price at over $300,000 and the potential home buyers or sellers are tech savvy then you don't need to worry about not having enough demand for Redfin's services. The reason this is related to your income is that Redfin's refund to buyers policy works best if the subject property is higher than $300,000 anything less than this price range is not worth the hassle for Redfin. Customers who are pursuing a home below the $300,000 range are immediately referred to Partner Agents. I strongly disagree in giving any business to Partner Agents because this is just simply throwing away profits for Redfin and income for independent contractors. Now let's address the pecking order on how tours are assigned. The hierarchy if any exists goes Team Lead, Sr. Agent, Agent, and then Associate Agent. So if your area is not too tight knit with family and friends working together then you may have a chance on getting book for a tour but only after it is offer to the people listed above you. This brings up the second factor of the potential to earn money depends on the area manager and the team lead. If the area manager and team lead feel like they need to have plenty of associate agents on staff then they will over hire. So instead of getting 5 or 6 tour bookings per week you may now have only 1 or 2. I talked to other Associate Agents in other areas who say they are in high demand right off the gate. For one example, the other associate agent was doing inspections and open houses about 30 days after being hired. In my area I had to until 4 months before doing an open house and first inspection. There is no way of knowing before you are hire if your area is a high demand area and if you are going to be making some decent money. During my interview process I asked and the team lead and Area Manager both said I would be getting at least 3-4 assignments weekly however this was so far from the truth. As an associate agent you are the last one on the pecking order so when the home buying or selling season is slow all the assignments are hogged up by the Redfin Agents. Thus, you don't make any money for long periods. It is important a new Associate agent is aware of this because you probably won't be making that much money during the holidays and you may need to put your annual real estate dues on your credit card. Now there are other cons associated with this position that are a nuisance. Some customers will simply rely heavily on you to be the communicator during the transaction. This is because the agents that write deals are too busy to get back to the customer on a timely manner. In most situations the customers don't get the Redfin process and think that they can depend on the associate agent to look up comps, send over tax information, and even recommend a number to submit an offer. In these instances I would gladly forward the message to the Agents but the customers would later tell me that they had not heard from the Agent in a few days and were upset because they missed out on submitting an offer. The problem of assisting these clients is that as an Associate agent you only get pay for specific assignments such as touring homes, inspections, etc. There is no compensation for going the extra mile and fulfilling clients' request. Another negative for Redfin, I must bring up the compensation factor. If you calculate all your expenses such as your gas, your dues, and your time spent on completing assignments as an Associate agent in order to make $35,000 annually you will see yourself putting in more than 40 hours per week. Finally, if you think you may want to tough it out and hope that one day your hard work pays off and you land an opening full time position you may be disappointed. The hiring on these openings in my area is strictly based on the politics and not on performance. It doesn't matter if you've are always available and your reviews are all 10s the one thing the Area Manager and Team lead are looking for is who are you connected to. So if your spouse or close friend is already working with Redfin you are a shoe in for that position.

Pros

Redfin offers good perks. Fully paid health insurance, catered lunches and commuter subsidies are all included.

Cons

The management here is pretty terrible. They put people in manager positions that have shown a good work ethic, but are not necessarily trained in leading a team. This shows in many brances of the business. My manager was awful and was the ultimate reason I decided to leave the company. There's also a very weird 'drink the kool aid' culture. If you question leadership, or even ask about additional company benefits, you're branded as 'greedy' or 'entitled'. These accusations make you question your every move, and ultimately has created a toxic work environment.

Pros

Great benefits overall, work life balance isn't bad once you reach a manager level. Salaries are competitive at the manager level. Agents are given freedom to work without supervision as long as they are closing deals and get overall good reviews.

Cons

Local managers don't own their job itself or decisions on their direct reports anymore. Upper management has shifted to micromanaging everything that happens in the field everyday. This approach has really strayed from what I considered to be the core values when I started of supporting people at all levels and trusting your people to do the right thing and do their job effectively. Agent base salaries and bonus keep going down over the years because there are so many mouths to feed at the company.

Pros

You get many clients and lots of experience. There is a fun trip once a year. The agents are awesome.

Cons

They run you into the ground. The average agent does 34 deals a year and the managers are constantly on your case to do more. There is NO work life balance. You work 12 hours a day, EVERY day. After all of that your salary is around 25k and your bonuses get taxed around 40 %. So you walk home with nothing left in your pocket. Because you have so many clients it is a constant state of emergency all of the time. Two of my co workers were hospitalized from the stress of it all.