findwell is a brand-new real estate brokerage in Seattle, and this is the very first post on our brand-new blog. Our goal for this blog is to help educate and inform people about current housing market topics, the Seattle-area real estate market, and general advice and lessons about buying and selling homes. We hope that you will add us to your list of RSS feeds and encourage you to join in the conversation about our favorite topic, real estate.

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 $6,500 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.