Redfin announced today that it has opened three new offices in Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego – something Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman hinted at last month’s Connect Conference (see Inman Connect Highlights Real Estate 2.0).
Redfin employee Matt Goyer claims with this launch, Redfin has grown by 340%.
San Diego Home Blog and BloodhoundBlog contributor Kris Berg snagged an audio interview with Kelman, in which he reveals, amongst the coffee house chatter, that this expansion is due largely to pressure to build their profitability.
What’s most interesting about listening to Kelman talk about his company, is that it’s very clear Redfin is morphing away from being a pure “tech” play and becoming more and more like a traditional real estate brokerage; albeit one that has a very non-traditional business model and a huge on-site development/engineering staff.
More coverage on the Redfin launch:
- Jon Lansner’s OCRegister blog
- John Cook’s Venture Blog
Update: Ouch. Kelman sure knows how to stir the real estate industry up. A quote from his interview in today’s Los Angeles Times:
“Soon the industry will be seen as bad as Big Oil or the tobacco companies”
