Instant, magical information when you’re standing in front of any house

By simply standing in front of the home, xHome uses the iPhone’s location sensors to figure out exactly which house you’re looking at. Combining data from public records, MLS listing feeds and findwell’s proprietary databases, xHome can instantly show you when the house was built, square footage, and previous sale information. If the home is for sale or recently sold, we’ll show the listing or sale price, a listing price history and gobs of luscious photos.

xHome also uses a new patent-pending, low-impact x-ray attachment to peer through exterior walls. Similar to a camera flash, the rays emitted by the attachment are reflected to the iPhone camera interface, which allows the iPhone to render interior photos with surprising depth and clarity.

“Home shopping can be a frustrating experience,” says findwell CEO Kevin Lisota, “Homes listed for sale often have misleading photos and arranging a home tour with your agent for every home that you’re interested in is just too cumbersome. Compounding these problems is that there are so few homes on the market right now, so it is difficult to find comparable homes to gauge an accurate value for the home you are buying. xHome solves this problem by allowing you to view the inside of any home at any time with just a click of a button.”

Low-impact x-rays + iPhone processing power = stunningly accurate interior images

xHome takes advantage of new advances in x-ray sensing technology. While most x-rays penetrate all the way through the home, a small percentage are reflected back to the iPhone’s camera which is sensitive to both visible and invisible electromagnetic waves. Minute differences in the reflected rays provide data that can not only convey depth to the interior images of the home, but can also be used to accurately colorize the images. The result is a photo-realistic view of the home’s interior, without ever having set foot inside.

The xHome attachment does emit a low dose of ionizing radiation that penetrates the exterior and interior walls of the home, but it is uni-directional away from the user. The rear of the sensor is also lead-shielded for an added measure of safety.

“The highly sensitive camera on the iPhone allows us to use a very small dose of radiation to get our images, and most construction materials reflect the rays quite nicely,” says Lisota. “We believe that the app falls below the radiation levels that require FDA approval, and if there happen to be occupants in the home, their exposure is quite small, much like getting a dental x-ray or two. We believe that the technology is very safe, though don’t advise standing in front of the iPhone when the xHome attachment is active, at least not repeatedly.”

Privacy first

The xHome app was built with privacy in mind. Face recognition advances allow the app to automatically detect occupants of the home and obscure their faces prior to images being rendered.

“findwell is all about radical transparency for the home shopper,” says Lisota, “but seeing who’s inside doesn’t affect the value or quality of the home’s interior, so we made sure to block them out. We believe we’ve put the power of accurate, unhindered home evaluation in the hands of the consumer with this new app.”

Download xHome and order your x-ray attachment today

The xHome app is free to download from the iTunes App Store. Upon first registration, you’ll be asked to enter your shipping details and a credit card for shipment of the xHome x-ray attachment. Cost of the attachment is $10, but if you end up buying or selling a home with a findwell agent, the cost of the x-ray attachment will be refunded at the time of closing.

Up until yesterday, if you bought a home with Redfin in Seattle, they would refund 50% of their commission, subject to a minimum fee on lower-priced homes. They’ve removed the formula and calculator from their website, and now you need to look at each individual listing to find out what your potential savings will be, which appears to be calculated by some “black box” formula.

I took a look at a range of properties on their site and came up with the following chart. You’ll see that their rebate climbs from 5%-45%, depending on the list price of the home. Curiously, their announcement of this new program claims a “range between 15% and 50%,” yet the actual numbers on their website tell a different story. The rebate goes to 5% on the low end, and only goes up to 45% (not 50%) on expensive homes. Looks like you’ve got to be a big spender at $950k and above to get the maximum rebate.

Comparing these new fees to their old ones, you can see that they’ve increased their fees pretty dramatically for home buyers in the $400k-$600k range, with a price increase of 20%-39% for the core of the Seattle buyer market.

You might be sent to a partner agent

Below certain price points, you can’t use the services of a Redfin agent. They will shuffle you off to one of their partners at RE/MAX, Keller Williams or other local brokerages. Strangely, this varies by your location on the map and your price point. In central Seattle, you’ve got to spend $200k to use a Redfin agent. In Redmond, this goes up to $250k and in Sammamish, they won’t help you unless you spend $300k. I’ve watched this in some of their other cities, and apparently they tweak these map/price parameters regularly to determine when they’ll help you and when they won’t.

Our approach is different. findwell doesn’t believe that we should pass you off to other brokerages, nor do we believe that buyers of different price points deserve different levels of service. If you are within our service area, one of our full-time agents will help you.

Toast the Savings

A lot of Seattle home buyers are going to spend more to use Redfin’s service. If you buy a $500,000 home, the Redfin rebate is $5,364. The findwell rebate is $7,500, saving you $2,136 more.

Given these changes, we wanted to give Seattle home buyers and sellers a fun incentive to check us out, since it appears that the “Redfin rebate is toast.” For anyone considering using a Redfin agent, findwell will give you a cool toaster if you choose our agents instead.

The Service Difference

The logic behind the price increases is that they are able to provide a more personal, 1:1 service from your agent. They’ve finally gotten the agents who negotiate deals out from behind their desk, but only to meet you on your first tour and to see a house you want to bid on. Redfin still has got an army of hourly contractors to facilitate the rest of your home tours and any inspections you need.

Since we started findwell, our approach to personal service has always been different. We believe in a 1:1 agent relationship at all points in the process, and think that the only way we can provide value and expertise is to make sure that we’re there with you every step of the way, whether that is home tours, inspections or otherwise.

Don’t get me wrong, Redfin has a great website for shopping for homes and we’ve admired their willingness to innovate. We just think that there is a better option out there in Seattle when it comes time to select an agent to help you. Give findwell a look before you choose a Redfin agent.

We are on the hunt for a new team member and just posted a job opening for a real estate broker.

We believe that real estate can be a rewarding careeer and strive to provide growth, education and advancement opportunities to our agents.

If you think you’d be a good fit with our team, please send a resume and cover letter to jobs@findwell.com.

During the conference, Sherry Chris, the CEO of Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, presented a list of 24 new real estate companies that she dubbed “Beta Brokerages”, highlighting real estate brokerages that are innovating and doing things differently in our industry. findwell was named as one of these next generation real estate companies.

According to Chris:

A new generation of real estate brokerages has been surfacing all across America. Breaking away from tradition, attracting new customers through new technologies, social media, and training. Find out what your colleagues and competitors are doing to lead the industry’s future.

We are proud to be included in a nationwide list of forward-thinking real estate companies. Many of the other brokerages that made the list are companies that we respect and admire for their willingness to change the real estate industry for the better.

On April 1, the news was out that the Seattle fireworks show was cancelled due to lack of sponsorship. We were goofing around with an April Fool’s Day post for our blog, and jokingly said that we would stage our own scaled-down version of the fireworks. At the same time, Dave Ross was talking about the demise of the fireworks show on his talk show on KIRO radio. In a moment of spontaneity, local chef Tom Douglas called in and pledged $5,000 to keep the show going. Suddenly there was a grass-root campaign to come up with the funds, and within 24 hours, 100 local businesses had contributed enough to save the show. We decided to participate as one of the sponsors to give something back to the community that supports us.

Independence Day offers a chance to celebrate the freedoms and opportunities that are available to us here. It is also a chance to gather with friends and family and simply enjoy the show. We are proud that we were able to contribute to keep this community event together, and encourage you to support the other local businesses that stepped up to save the show. Enjoy the show Seattle!

According to CEO Kevin Lisota, findwell couldn’t bear the thought of the Fourth of July in Seattle without fireworks. “I’ve lived here more than 10 years, and look forward to the Lake Union fireworks every single year. We value our involvement in the community, and felt this was a way that we could give back to all of the residents in Seattle. We can’t imagine Seattle without a premier fireworks show on Independence Day.”

With their nearby office in South Lake Union, findwell reportedly plans to stage its own show on Lake Union. They plan to apply shortly for a fireworks permit from the Seattle Parks Department, which apparently isn’t too difficult to obtain.

Image by TrevinC via Flickr

findwell announced that it intends to keep with the spirit and format of fireworks shows from years gone past. “Shooting the fireworks from a barge in Lake Union offers a perfect vantage point for hundreds of thousands of viewers, along with the stunning backdrop of downtown Seattle. We plan to provide a great show, with stunning aerial fireworks and ground displays, all synchronized to a musical soundtrack like before,” said Lisota.

Details are still slowly emerging, but findwell is a small startup company, so some of the features of this year’s Lake Union fireworks will be scaled down compared to years prior. Here is the current plan for the show:

1. Fireworks barge – findwell plans to shoot off their fireworks from a watercraft in the same location as the barge from previous years. Reportedly they will be using their friend’s 19-foot aluminum bass boat.
2. Aerial show – findwell plans for a dazzling aerial show to include:
   1. 150 “whistling” bottle rockets
   2. 20 roman candles
   3. 15 rockets, traveling as high as 50 feet, some with patterns like smiley faces and hearts!
3. Ground display – The ground display will be easily seen on the bass boat launch platform and will include:
   1. Hundreds upon hundreds of “black cat” firecrackers
   2. 10 smoke bombs
   3. A few really large black snakes (you know, like the ones you lit as a child)
   4. Synchronized hand-held sparkler display from volunteers on the neighboring sail boat.
4. Music soundtrack – The launching of the fireworks will be synchronized with a custom soundtrack to be broadcast via an iPod and a pair of pretty powerful speakers. The hundreds of thousands of attendees can download the soundtrack via a podcast prior to the event to listen along.
5. Grand finale – Organizers remain secretive about the content of the grand finale, but claim that it will be “really special,” possibly interspersed with a handful of very loud M-80s to really please the crowd.
6. Crowd participation – findwell plans to involve the crowd in this year’s fireworks display, reportedly handing out hundreds of sparklers and also some hand-held flags to wave during the show.

“We’re glad that we are able to help out the residents of Seattle with a stellar Fourth of July show,” said Lisota. “We’re still just a small real estate company, but if we sell some more houses this spring, we may yet be able to add to these festivities for July 4. Personally I’d love to have one of those rockets that explodes and looks like Saturn with the rings, but those are pretty expensive.”

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Improvement for Home Sellers

After years of focusing primarily on home buyers, Redfin is now emulating our own services for home sellers. Like findwell, they are now offering in-person home consultations, professional photos, traditional marketing materials, online marketing blitzes, feedback gathering from buyers and agents who have toured the home, along with open houses. They are doing this while matching our own fee of charging half of what traditional agents typically charge for listing your home. They also gave up on their $750 upfront listing fee, which was certainly an unpopular fee with their prospective clients. We applaud their efforts to compete with traditional brokers for listings.

Redfin is also now gathering feedback from agents and buyers who have toured your home. We have always viewed this as critical information to help market a property and make decisions on changes to the price and condition of the home. We’ve had an automated feedback system in place for a few years now, and our sellers have always found tremendous value in it. Since Redfin is now gathering agent and buyer feedback for their own listings, I need to call on them to return the favor to other agents when they tour listings. We have had 200+ showings by Redfin agents at our own listings, but we have only received 2 feedback responses. The rest have been ignored. We also attempt phone calls to follow up with Redfin agents after they have showed our listings, but not once have we been successful at reaching them and actually gathering feedback from their showings. If Redfin is going to gather buyer feedback from tours of their own listings, they need to step up to the plate and do the same thing when they show another agent’s listing.

Short Sale Support

Redfin is now offering the ability to tour homes listed as a short sale in Seattle. However, if you want to actually place an offer on short sales, they will pass you off to one of their external partner agents. Short sales can be volatile and difficult to close, so they are passing off all of that hard work to non-Redfin agents to get the deal done, and only offering a 15% rebate in the process. This is compared to their normal 50% commission rebate for buyers. findwell has chosen a different path with short sales. While the short sale process can be difficult and nerve-wracking, if the home is right for you, your dedicated findwell agent will take you through the offer and negotiation process and stick by your side to make it work. We still offer our standard 50% commission rebate on short sale transactions, despite the added risk and time-consuming work involved in a short sale.

Compelling Alternatives to Traditional Brokers

Traditional real estate brokerages such as Windermere, John L. Scott and Coldwell Banker Bain have long held strong market share in the Seattle market. Online brokers such as Redfin and findwell continue to innovate, combining high technology and low fees to offer a better approach to buying or selling a home. We are betting that our model will win in the long run, but we’ve still got a long way to go. Before you choose a real estate agent, we encourage you to evaluate some of us newcomers before you make your choice.

Change Agents: Web-based Real Estate

When some real estate start-ups entered the business, they set out to transform the industry via technology. Though agent compensation still divides them, the line between old school and new school is blurring.

According to CEO Kevin Lisota, findwell plans to use the additional capital to expand its ability to deliver extremely high levels service to home buyers and sellers. “We identified two key bets for this round of funding,” said Lisota. “We have been writing a lot of offers for home buyers lately and ran out of copy paper. When visiting OfficeMax, Shannon forgot to bring her company credit card and decided to invest an additional $39.23 of her own funds to continue to scale our infrastructure.” Lisota’s additional capital contribution of $2.50 was used to expand field operations when he fed a parking meter while touring homes in Seattle.

findwell is also pleased to announce a strategic investment made today by Estately CEO Galen Ward. At a lunch meeting between these Seattle real estate startups, Ward identified a strategic investment opportunity when findwell CEO Lisota was short $10 for his burger and fries. “At a time when the real estate market is struggling, findwell continues to grow. I was excited to spot them $10 for a tasty burger to help them become a market leader in the $1 trillion residential real estate industry,” said Ward.

As part of the investment, Ward joins findwell’s board of directors. “Ward’s technical savvy and expertise in online real estate search are a perfect fit for us,” says findwell CEO Lisota. “Not only does he share our affinity for a juicy burger, but his thinking will help us find our “secret sauce” to become the next big thing in the real estate industry. I neglected to mention to Galen that we do not actually have a board of directors, but we will still accept his “burger-loan” mentoring until we pay him back his 10 bucks.”

findwell is also planning to raise another round of funding on Tuesday when it sells yet another home in Seattle. “We are starting to lose count of these funding rounds as we sell more and more homes,” says Lisota. findwell plans to use next week’s round of funding to purchase a mere 10 lines of code from the real estate search developers at Estately. “In addition to writing elegant code, Estately takes the extra step to coat each line of code with platinum. Platinum prices on the commodities market have risen ~75% this year, driving the price of Estately code to over $500/line, so we need next week’s funding round to procure these snippets of pure coding genius.”

This financing round and strategic investment caps a year of findwell growth:

• Revenue and home sales volume has increased 3.5x over 2008
• findwell launched a major update to its real estate search, powered by Estately technology
• 2009 will mark the first profitable year for findwell
• Traffic to the findwell.com website is up 500% over the previous year

findwell is headquartered in Seattle and currently serves home buyers and sellers in the Puget Sound region. For more information and commentary from the findwell team, follow the findwell blog at http://blog.findwell.com.

In a most unexpected show of gratitude, they brought me a findwell cake when we met at the house to hand them the keys. I was surprised and humbled by the gesture and am very happy that our customer service exceeded their expectations.

“Thanks to your tenacity and hard work, we are new homeowners!”

I can think of no stronger customer endorsement of our real estate services. We look forward to exceeding more customer expectations in the future (and receiving more tasty cakes!)

New findwell Search Features

findwell’s new search is based on data from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service (MLS), so buyers can be assured that they are viewing the most current available listings in the Seattle area. Here are some highlights of the new features now available to findwell customers:

• My findwell – Save personalized lists of properties, get automatic updates for new listings, and easily share your favorites and searches with friends. Friends can also comment on your listings.
• Transit Search – Limit your home search to homes that are near light rail and bus stops.
• Walk Score™ Search – Find a walkable place to live by searching for homes that are close to nearby stores, restaurants, schools and parks.
• Hide a Home – Hide listings from your searches that you no longer want to include.
• Neighborhood Search – Find homes in a specific neighborhood simply by typing the name of the neighborhood.
• Free Text Search – Looking for a “fixer” or something “funky”? Simply type in those words to quickly sift through listings.
• Google Street View – View images of the surrounding neighborhood online.
• School Details – Quickly view nearby schools and school ratings.
• Listing History – Look for past price and status changes to identify seller motivation.
• Previous Sales – Find out when a home last sold and what the sale price was.

Helping You Find a “Transit-Friendly” Place to Live

The new website also incorporates two awesome features to help you find homes that are near local bus or light rail stops and that are within easy walking distance of local amenities, such as stores, schools, parks and restaurants. You are able to search based on the Walk Score of particular homes, or you can specify a maximum distance to a local bus stop or rail stations.

Unmatched Customer Service

If you find a home that you like, our new website makes it easy to schedule a time to go see the home with one of our findwell agents. Our agents are experts on the local real estate market and available to help you at any time to get you through the process of buying or selling a home. Our agents are 100% focused on customers, and they don’t have to spend time prospecting for their next client. Because of this, we are able to charge 1/2 of what a traditional broker charges for real estate commissions, saving you a ton of money in the process.

Our Service Area

Our new site provides search capabilities throughout Western Washington, but we are currently only able to provide agent services in the Seattle metropolitan area. If you are a fan of the new search technology, but coming to us from another state, we encourage you to check out www.estately.com. They currently provide real estate search and referrals to experienced agents in Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Chicago and Atlanta.

Lots of Offer Activity

Our buyer activity for June broke all of our internal records. (We are still a startup, so admittedly this isn’t too hard to do.) We remain cautiously optimistic that market activity will continue at this pace.

• findwell agents led buyers on tours of 176 homes this month, a 21% increase over May. Home tours in June are up 163% from February and March levels.
• On average, each findwell agent has been inside ~230 homes so far this year, so you can be assured that the agent negotiating your home purchase is a true market expert.
• fiona, the findwell MINI Cooper, clocked 1514 miles on home tours and needed a couple car washes after a very busy month.
• The number of offers submitted and received by findwell increased 55% over May. Overall offer activity is triple the levels that we saw during the winter.
• 21% of offers placed in June were on bank-owned (REO) properties or short sales.
• We had just one transaction fail in June, due to an unanticipated job loss for our buyer.

Seller Traffic Still Strong

• findwell sellers averaged 9 showings of their property for June, which was down from May, but a number of properties were not on the market for the entire month which skews the statistics.
• Our agents received direct feedback from 68% of agents who showed our listings.
• For 2009, findwell’s listings have sold for an average of –0.6% off of list price and are currently averaging 47 days on market before accepting an offer.

Customer Quote of the Month

“I recently bought a foreclosed house from Fannie Mae using Kevin Lisota as my representative. The laborious Fannie Mae processes and procedures made the transaction extremely difficult and complicated. Kevin and the findwell team were able to identify, negotiate and successfully navigate the potential pitfalls involved with purchasing a foreclosed house. Looking back, it is almost comical how ridiculous the Fannie Mae requirements were. I would not think it was comical if I did not actually close on the transaction. With all the complications, Kevin kept a great attitude and continued to provide valuable insights and advice on how to move forward. They truly have done an excellent job and I could not provide a stronger recommendation for any real estate professional I have had the opportunity to work with. If you are buying a house with potential complications, findwell has the expertise to get the job done!” – Mark H.

Sales Activity Strengthens

Improving on an already strong April, findwell agents were super busy with home tours and placing offers. Spring is a traditionally strong sales season for real estate every year, but we’ve seen some surprising strength in certain segments of the market.

• findwell agents led buyers on tours of 145 homes, a 51% increase from April. Overall, home tours are up 116% from February and March levels.
• fiona, the findwell MINI Cooper, clocked 1323 miles on home tours.
• The number of offers submitted and received by findwell increased 150% over April.
• 38% of offers placed in May were on bank-owned (REO) properties or short sales, an marked increase from April.
• We had two transactions fail in May. The first transaction was a vacant land purchase that didn’t work out when the engineer provided a negative feasibility study report. The second transaction fell apart on a new construction purchase where the builder was more than 6 months behind on their promised completion date.

Sellers Continue to See More Traffic

• findwell sellers averaged 15 showings of their property for May, a 66% increase from April.
• Our agents received direct feedback from 74% of agents who showed our listings.
• For 2009, findwell’s listings have sold for an average of –0.7% off of list price and are currently averaging 54 days on market before accepting an offer.

Some Competition Returns

In an unexpected turn, our buyers got outbid four times this month! Most of the competitive bidding situations seem to be occurring on single-family homes in the <$400k price range. While most of these homes are not being bid up over list price, we had one notable exception on a bank-owned property. The bank priced the home at ~$75k under market value, which resulted in 11 bids in one day. The winning offer was likely +$70k over list price!

Customer Quote of the Month

“Thanks for the great job helping me to buy my first home! I didn’t realize that it was going to be such an adventure to buy a home, but you guys were pros. You kept things on track and got the deal done, even when it didn’t look like it was going to work out. Also, thanks for the extra help during the inspection process. You really went above and beyond my expectations by seeking repair bids and ultimately coordinating a bunch of repairs so that the house was ready for us to move in on the closing date.”

Tweet, Tweet, Tweet

We continue to see more and more people engaging with us via social media, such as our blog, Facebook or Twitter. In fact, we got our first customer from Twitter just this month!

Kevin: What is the biggest change about being a findwell agent?

Michael: The hardest part about being a traditional agent was worrying about where my next client was going to come from. I was 100% responsible for my own marketing and prospects, and quite honestly it was the part of the business that I couldn’t stand. I’d much rather spend my time helping people to buy and sell homes, but found myself usually spending 50%, sometimes up to 75%, of my time looking for the next customer. I think that is a pretty common experience for many real estate agents. findwell’s model has been a great change. They take care of all marketing and lead generation for their agents, freeing me up to spend close to 100% of my time on the best part of the business, which is helping people to buy and sell their homes. It’s been great having new customers just fall in my lap.

Kevin: Would you say that you are doing more business now than when you were with RE/MAX?

Michael: It has been a huge difference. Not only do I have more time to work with clients, but I’m working with 3x more clients at any given time. I love being this busy and ultimately I’m a better agent because I’m able to do more transactions. Real estate is a business that you learn by doing. Each transaction presents unique challenges and scenarios, and I find myself learning more about real estate with every deal that I do. With my higher transaction volume, I’m positive that I’ve learned more in a year than I did in all my years at RE/MAX.

Kevin: How is the atmosphere different working at findwell?

Michael: When you work for a traditional real estate company, you are an independent contractor, not an employee. At findwell, the agents are full-time employees, with a requirement to be in the office during business hours. I was initially hesitant to give up my independence, but the atmosphere is way better as an employee. findwell agents don’t compete with one another and are encouraged to work as a team. I found teamwork at a traditional brokerage to be non-existent. It is a cutthroat, fend-for-yourself environment where agents won’t help each other and often will compete directly with you to take business away.

Kevin: Is it more fun working at findwell?

Michael: Real estate has always been fun for me, but I definitely love being part of a team with bigger goals. I can see the contributions I make not only growing my own career, but also contributing to help grow the company. findwell also makes sure that we both work hard and play hard. Whether it is an outing on a sailboat, the company holiday party, or simply an extra day off when we’ve been super busy, I like that they are looking out for our work/life balance, which is always hard as a real estate agent.

Kevin: You’re paid a salary. Every agent will ask if you could make more if you were paid strictly on commissions. Now that you’ve been at this year, what do you think?

Michael: The salary versus commission debate certainly was part of my decision making process when I joined findwell. My take home pay last year was very comparable to previous years at RE/MAX, and now I don’t have to worry about the huge peaks and valleys in my income as I wait for the next commission check to come in. I also don’t have to worry about covering the huge number of expenses of being an agent. findwell also has a bonus structure in place to help agents share in the profits when business is booming. I’m confident that once we see the real estate market pick up again, I’ll have a great opportunity to participate in the profits I’m helping to bring in.

Kevin: How do you compare the resources available to you previously at RE/MAX and now at findwell?

Michael: My broker at RE/MAX was very helpful on a variety of legal and real estate matters and certainly helped point me in the right direction. However, I can’t help but feel that most traditional brokers are all about attracting agents to their brokerage, not attracting customers to help their agents succeed. findwell has been much different. They are relentless about marketing by making sure to measure the ROI of every campaign they do. There isn’t a day that goes by when the company leadership isn’t trying to attract more customers for the team. They are also on the cutting edge technology-wise, actively engaging our clients on social media like our blog, Facebook or Twitter. I can’t help but think that this sort of marketing is the future for real estate agencies.

If you are looking for a great real estate agent in the Seattle area, you can contact Michael Wilson at mwilson@findwell.com

More Buyer Activity

April was a busy month for findwell agents, both for home tours and placing offers.

• findwell agents led buyer on tours of 96 homes, a 43% increase from March.
• fiona, the findwell MINI Cooper, clocked 1134 miles during home tours.
• 27% of offers placed in April were on short-sales or bank-owned properties
• We had two transactions fail in April. One offer fell apart because of lender who provided incorrect numbers on his Good Faith Estimate. The other transaction was cancelled after review of condo HOA association documents.

Sellers See Uptick in Traffic

• findwell sellers averaged 9 showings of their property for April, a 31% increase from March.
• Our agents received direct feedback from 73% of agents who showed our listings.
• For 2009, findwell’s listings have sold for an average of –0.7% off of list price and are currently averaging 46 days on market before accepting an offer.

Customers Making the Switch

• findwell continued to win over customers from competing real estate companies. Our new customers in April included:
  • 4 customers who switched from Redfin
  • 3 customers who switched from RE/MAX
  • 1 customer who switched from John L Scott
  • 1 customer who chose findwell over Windermere

findwell also hosted 26 home buyers and sellers who came to our home buying/home selling classes. findwell customers also devoured 3 large pizzas and numerous beers at our “Ask the Agent” Open House.

Customer Quote of the Month

“They toured us through homes on our schedule, and shepherded a relatively complicated sale through to completion, keeping us in the loop along the way. If we purchase another home in the area, it will definitely be through findwell, although we don’t plan to move for a good long while as the home we’re in is perfect.”

Watch for May Report

Let us know what other statistics you would like to see for our upcoming report in May.

If you’re interested, please contact us at info@findwell.com to see if you’re a good fit for the focus group. We’ll give each participant $50 and will provide dinner and drinks.

TechFlash Guest Post: Free hot dogs and other startup marketing tricks

Say hello to Fiona – the new findwell mascot. She is available to tour you through any house at any time as part of findwell’s Open House Anytime program. Just tell us what homes you want to see and we’ll make the necessary arrangements to get you in to view properties. Most of the time, we can do it that same day. And unlike other brokerages we won’t limit the number of tours or try to charge you. It’s just part of our full service.

Full Service. Mini Commissions.

p.s. Honk if you see us on the streets!

A little bit of history is in order, as this might be the first you have heard of findwell. We founded findwell in January 2008. I had spent a number of years at Microsoft leading a variety of marketing efforts. During my spare time, I began investing in Seattle apartment buildings and also took on a number of remodel and new construction projects. I was doing enough real estate transactions that it made sense for me to become a licensed real estate agent and be able to facilitate my own transactions. After I got my license, a number of friends and co-workers began asking me to help them to buy and sell their homes. So many asked, in fact, that I thought it would be worthwhile to actually try it as a business. As luck would have it, my co-founder Shannon Ressler was looking for a career change and we decided to form a new company together. After many months and a huge list of potential names, we came up with “findwell”, which is simply a combination of two words that we like: “find” and “dwell”. So we had our name and our business plan, and the rest is history…

So what do we do? Quite simply we are a full-service real estate brokerage that charge half of what other agents typically charge. We have done the math on how much time and effort it takes us to buy or sell a home and believe that we can provide the same service for substantially less. If you buy a home through us, we’ll rebate 1/2 of our commission to you. (we have a $7,500 minimum commission) For sellers, we will list your house for a 1.5% listing commission. As a seller, you still need to pay a buyer’s agent commission to the other agent, and we recommend that you pay the going market rate, which is typically 3%. If you buy or sell a $500,000 house, which is typical in Seattle, you’d save $7500 using our service.

What’s the catch? There actually isn’t one. We’ve structured our business differently and want to pass those savings along to consumers. Here is why we are different.

We did the math

We’ve done enough transactions that we know how much time and effort it takes us to buy or sell a home. We know we can provide full service for less than what is being charged in the market today.

The job of a real estate agent has changed

Consumers have unprecedented access to online listings and other property data that allows them to find and learn about properties without having to speak with an agent. The amount of time we have to spend on each transaction is far less than it used to be, and this allows us to pass the savings on to you.

Our marketing is efficient

In a typical real estate brokerage, there may be 50 agents and 50 separate marketing budgets. Each agent needs to market their own name and listings to bring in business. We believe that this is extremely inefficient. Our agents don’t have to market themselves. We have a single marketing department and marketing budget that allows our agents to focus on buying and selling homes, not promoting themselves.

Puget Sound home prices have increased dramatically

Real estate agents get paid based on a percentage of each sale. Given the huge increases in home prices in our region, that percentage has gotten to be a big amount of money. We did the math, and at current market prices, our services don’t need to be 3% of the price of a home for us to provide you full service yet remain profitable.

Our overhead is low

Traditional real estate brokerages are members of large regional or national franchises. Those franchises require fees for their infrastructure, brand and advertising. We are independent and can avoid these costs.

We focus on marketing that works

When we market your property, we only spend money on advertising that works. We relentlessly track what works and what doesn’t. If we spend money on a glossy magazine ad and it yields no results, we simply no longer advertise in that glossy magazine.

Other agents may debate us about our business model, but we think it is a consumer-friendly approach in today’s real estate market and look forward to helping home buyers and home sellers in the Seattle area.