This is Glenn Kelman, Redfin's CEO. Thanks for using Redfin and glad to hear that we gave you a jump on getting a place.
To answer your question about Zillow, Trulia and Redfin: Zillow and Trulia are media portals; Redfin is a brokerage, started by software entrepreneurs but with our own real estate agents to represent people buying or selling a home.
As a brokerage, Redfin has complete access to the local Multiple Listing Services (MLSs) used by brokerages and their agents to list homes and record sales. In addition to MLS listings, Redfin shows for-sale-by-owner listings, foreclosures, and new-construction listings, but most of the listings on our site come from MLSs.
There are hundreds of local MLSs, each with different data publication rules, but nearly all MLSs only accept as members brokerages willing to contribute their own listings to the MLS database. As a result, Redfin has the most complete and most timely listing data of any major real estate app or website, but only covers about half the U.S.
Zillow and Trulia get some listing data through services that syndicate a selection of listings from the MLS and some by asking real estate agents to upload their listings. A variety of studies, sponsored by Realtor.com, ZipRealty and Redfin, have shown that Redfin and other MLS-powered sites have significantly more agent-listed homes than the portals; Redfin also gets data much sooner, both to show new listings and to recognize when old listings have been sold.
To answer your question about Zillow, Trulia and Redfin: Zillow and Trulia are media portals; Redfin is a brokerage, started by software entrepreneurs but with our own real estate agents to represent people buying or selling a home.
As a brokerage, Redfin has complete access to the local Multiple Listing Services (MLSs) used by brokerages and their agents to list homes and record sales. In addition to MLS listings, Redfin shows for-sale-by-owner listings, foreclosures, and new-construction listings, but most of the listings on our site come from MLSs.
There are hundreds of local MLSs, each with different data publication rules, but nearly all MLSs only accept as members brokerages willing to contribute their own listings to the MLS database. As a result, Redfin has the most complete and most timely listing data of any major real estate app or website, but only covers about half the U.S.
Zillow and Trulia get some listing data through services that syndicate a selection of listings from the MLS and some by asking real estate agents to upload their listings. A variety of studies, sponsored by Realtor.com, ZipRealty and Redfin, have shown that Redfin and other MLS-powered sites have significantly more agent-listed homes than the portals; Redfin also gets data much sooner, both to show new listings and to recognize when old listings have been sold.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/03/on-big-real-estate-...
Hope this helps to answer your question! Best, Glenn