Redfin buys Walkscore | Hacker News Reader

Redfin buys Walkscore

blog.walkscore.com

93 pointsflippyhead33 comments

Great purchase. I've done a fair amount of looking at stuff on Redfin and then typing the address into Walkscore for more info. Can't wait until it is integrated.

Honestly, check out Trulia :)

Walkscore info is integrated, on top of trulia's significant investment in great mapping, including the "search by commute time" feature that it mentions Walkscore supports as well.

Does anyone know if this goes away post acquisition? It seems Trulia and Redfin do compete for the same customers.

Zillow acquired Trulia, and Zillow and Redfin are absolutely competitors.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/07/28/zillow-to-buy-trulia-...

Zillow is in the process of acquiring Trulia. The deal hasn't closed yet.

That seems like an important reason why redfin might want to buy them -- exclusivity.

The press release from Redfin makes it sounds like they are happy to still lease out the data for 5k+ requests a month; everything below that being free it seems

"Redfin is boosting the number of “calls per day” from 100 to 5,000 before partner companies have to start paying for the data."

http://www.geekwire.com/2014/redfin-buys-walk-score-marking-...

As an ex-Zillow employee, I'm guessing it does go away from Zillow/Trulia at some point, and also, these brands definitely do compete.

Zillow/Trulia are media companies trying to connect buyers with brokers who pay them money for advertising.

Redfin is a brokerage trying to connect buyers with their own brokers.

They shouldn't be competitors-- one is a "portal" and one is a "brokerage." Much of the industry has regulations preventing brokerages from being portals, and vice versa.

Redfin is actually competing with the brokers/agents who use Trulia and Zillow.

It's an unfortunate issue of Redfin's that they're confusing the public by presenting themselves as both (portal and brokerage). It's more so that they're trying to compete, for some unknown reason, with Trulia and Zillow (Zulia).

They definitely are just another brokerage, like Century 21 or Remax and nothing more.

Note: I work for Househappy.org so I'm rather well versed on this issue in particular.

But they are competitors. They're both competing for home buyers.

If a home buyer goes to Redfin and not Zillow, Zillow loses because they monetize on their ability to sell leads to agents.

I don't know if I'd call the brokerage + portal thing unfortunate. Zillow/Trulia only control one portion of the home buying process (search/discovery), which isn't necessarily ideal. Most "normal" brokerages have trouble sourcing leads because they have poor websites, so the only way to get leads is with cold calling and networking. Doing a company where lots of leads can be sourced and worked internally by agents that all have lots of great tools and training at their disposal is a different concept, but it's not unfortunate.

But they aren't competing...

Zillow is an advertising company, selling ads to brokers-- as is Trulia. Neither sells homes, they sell ad space and leads.

Redfin is a regional brokerage. It directly lists and sells houses using its brokers.

I'm not saying that there isn't merit to the Redfin approach, I quite like it.

I just think for the public it's unfortunate as a lot of people assume when they use Redfin its more of a portal than a brokerage. If they want to make their purpose and intent more clear, I think that'd be great.

I hear you. My comment below: "Zillow/Trulia are media companies trying to connect buyers with brokers who pay them money for advertising. Redfin is a brokerage trying to connect buyers with their own brokers."

I agree that it would be nice if Redfin could be more open as a brokerage, but it makes sense to obscure the "we're a brokerage!" message from consumers, because most consumers hate brokers (other than their own broker - who is great!).

So I agree that consumers mistakenly think of Redfin like another online portal, but I don't think that the distinction one way or another matters that much. Both Zillow and Redfin put consumers in touch with brokers.

(edit: not sure why you're being downvoted - it wasn't me. I'm enjoying our conversation!)

> it would be nice if Redfin could be more open as a brokerage

https://www.redfin.com/ "WHY USE A REDFIN AGENT?" "When your agent and your website work together you..." "We’re full-service, local agents."

> Both Zillow and Redfin put consumers in touch with brokers. That's a weird way of looking at it.

Would you say that BestBuy is just like Google Shopping Search -- it puts you in touch with electonics sellers. But BestBuy tries to connect you with its own internal sellers?

Anyway, Zillow has no incentive to provide high quality data / shopping experience -- they do better advertising busines when users get interested but then confused and need an agent's help. Redfin uses the website to automate as much of the agent's work as possible, freeing up the agents for the necessarily high-touch work. The better Redfin's website is, the more profit they make on a sale (lower cost to close a deal)

> https://www.redfin.com/ "WHY USE A REDFIN AGENT?" "When your agent and your website work together you..." "We’re full-service, local agents."

Yes, but Zillow and Trulia use the word "our agent" all over as well.

> Would you say that BestBuy is just like Google Shopping Search -- it puts you in touch with electonics sellers. But BestBuy tries to connect you with its own internal sellers?

Sure. You can buy a TV from bestbuy.com or amazon, or whatever comparison you want to make and from GSS. Two ways to the same means.

> Anyway, Zillow has no incentive to provide high quality data / shopping experience

I don't completely disagree, but it's incorrect that they have NO incentive. There are plenty of reasons to provide accurate data. There's a reason we spent 10s of millions at Zillow each year trying to get better data. It certainly matters.

> There's a reason we spent 10s of millions at Zillow each year trying to get better data. It certainly matters.

If Zillow cared about getting quality data, they would've become/integrated a brokerage, as its the only way to get the most up-to-date real estate data. Redfin's data is much better because of this, and it shows.

I doubt it. Redfin is in a limited number of markets, and selling this walkscore data is clearly a good business model.

Where do I do search by commute time? That sounds really useful. I couldn't find it on Trulia's site.

On any search result page, for example: http://www.trulia.com/for_sale/San_Francisco,CA

Expand the filters and from there you can set a Max Commute Time.

Or, under "map view" search, you can add a commute time layer to the map.

http://www.trulia.com/for_sale/San_Francisco,CA/map_v

On thing to keep in mind, if your commute is, say 25 minutes by freeway, it might be 40 minutes in heavy traffic (or collision blocking a lane) with no fast alternate routes. On the other hand, 25 minutes by surface streets will likely have a few routes of similar commute time (shorter distance and slower average speed)

OK, I want to search by 95th percentile commute time!

Consolidation of online real estate continues.

Hopefully this doesn't mean they won't be showing up in padmapper and other apps like that. It's a pretty useful service while apartment hunting, although it would be awesome if they could find a better data source than CitySearch.

That's almost certainly what this means. Proprietary datasets are VERY hot in real estate right now because otherwise, everyone is working with the same listings data.

Did you know that Redfin is a very popular website with real estate agents who compete against Redfin agents for customers? And this violates the redfin.com EULA (real estate data is for provided for prospective home buyers and potential customers), but is not enforced at all?

Any word on the price paid?

No, and I doubt they'll release it. My guess from seeing lots and lots of similar acquisitions in RE is $5-10m range, with a large stock component and nice employee retention package (especially because this is Redfin's first acq. and they'll likely file IPO in 2015).

Couldn't have happened to better people!

Congrats guys!

I proposed that Trulia integrate Walkscore almost 7 years ago. Feels good to know someone did it, though I hope it stays open

Man, I need to get in to the real estate/rental site business. Every day another acquisition.

It's easy. Just start your company in 2007, work yourself to the bone for over half a decade while most of the industry ignores you, build an enduring consumer brand against all odds and expectations, find an engine for profit, get acquired!

Exactly. With a couple exceptions, these are all companies that have been around for 5-15 years that fly under the radar. A few companies acquired in the last couple years (for 7-10 figure amounts), and their founding dates:

Apartments.com (1992)

Marketleader (1999)

Trulia (2004) - not complete, but likely

Hotpads (2005)

Mortech (1987)

Postlets (2006)

StreetEasy (2005)

Private paper burried under $100m of preference :(

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