As for your friend my experience is they love them until they dont. Most of the top producing agents there move on after a few years.
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You could say “employees love them until they don’t” about virtually any company in any industry.
Top producers can probably make more $$ on their own, my friend is very sharp and appreciates the security provided by the great benefits that Redfin offers. He went through a very costly medical issue last year and they covered the expenses and gave him generous time off to recuperate. I don’t think he’s going anywhere soon, he’s a very loyal guy.[/quote]
Im glad your buddy had a safety net provided by them and hope he’s doing well. I also hope this country gets off its ass and starts addressing what i see as the #1 issue in our country which is lack of affordable health care for everyone.
Those benefits do not come cheap and as I mentioned above real estate brokerage is not that profitable. RDFN has never been profitable and has no profit in sight. I hope your friend understands loyalty is one way street in corporate America and frankly why so many of us have chosen this business to get control of our lives. When it no longer makes sense to operate as they do all bets are off for your friend.
I think the analyst report from ML/BOA sums up RDFN nicely.
An agency like any other, other than losing money
Redfin’s thesis has always been based on the fact that they were taking market share aggressively and (somehow) leveraging technology to create a fundamentally better real estate brokerage. The truth, laid bare in 2Q, however, is far less interesting: they are a discount brokerage that has driven share gains on low prices and marketing spend. In 2Q, they lost market share and their core/real business contracted as the market for housing was shut down in the first half of the quarter with back half of the quarter results and 3Q guidance showing improvement as macro forces (heavy Fed liquidity
injections, move to suburbization) drove overall improvements in the housing market.
They are a macro play on housing – and a very expensive one at that.
