Redfin®, the customer-first real estate brokerage, today announced its acquisition of Walk Score®, a leading provider of neighborhood information. The acquisition brings together two Seattle-based companies that share a passion for empowering consumers to make better decisions about where to live.
“We are thrilled to join forces with Walk Score,” said Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman. “Together we can give consumers a complete portrait of what it would be like to live somewhere new, within the house and in the surrounding neighborhood. As Redfin hires more agents to deliver increasingly local service, we’ll work with Walk Score to put everything we know about a neighborhood, and everything we’ve done there, into our website and mobile tools. And we should work well together: both companies are deeply mission-driven, with a special affinity for a new generation of urban, professional consumers.”
Walk Score was founded in 2007 by Matt Lerner, Jesse Kocher, Mike Mathieu and Josh Herst with the mission to promote walkable neighborhoods as a way to support the environment, public health and the economy. Today, Walk Score shows over 20 million scores every day across more than 30,000 websites, and is the only app that makes it easy to find rentals by commute time.
“Walk Score is about what's outside the four walls of a home or apartment and helping people make informed decisions about where they choose to live,” said Walk Score CEO Josh Herst. “Being close to the places and people you love and having a shorter commute is great for your quality of life. And we're thrilled to be combining this insight with Redfin's world-class home shopping experience and local market presence.”
Walk Score will continue to function independently for the foreseeable future. Starting today, websites and mobile apps will be able to request and display up to 5,000 Walk Score ratings each day for free. In the past, any site or app that displayed more than 100 Walk Scores per day had to pay a fee.
Walk Score CEO Josh Herst will serve as a strategic advisor throughout the integration. Walk Score Chief Technology Officer Matt Lerner will join Redfin as Vice President of Local Engineering. All other current Walk Score employees will join the Redfin team at Redfin’s Seattle headquarters.
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About Redfin
Redfin (www.redfin.com) is a customer-first real estate brokerage that represents people buying and selling homes. Founded and run by technologists, Redfin has a team of experienced, full-service real estate agents who are advocates, not salespeople, earning customer-satisfaction bonuses, not commissions. Redfin.com features all the broker-listed homes for sale, as well as for-sale-by-owner properties that don't pay brokers a commission. Redfin also offers online tools that make the entire process of buying or selling a home easier and more fun. The company serves major markets across the U.S. and has closed nearly $20 billion in home sales. In 2012, Redfin was named one of The DIGITAL 100: World's Most Valuable Private Tech Companies by Business Insider.
About Walk Score
Walk Score® makes it easy for apartment renters and homebuyers to find neighborhoods where they can drive less and live more. Walk Score believes that walkable neighborhoods with access to public transit, shorter commutes, and proximity to the people and places you love are the key to a happier, healthier and more sustainable lifestyle. Walk Score delivers more than 20 million scores for apartment and home addresses per day across a network of more than 30,000 real estate sites. Walk Score’s Advisory Board includes urban planning, environmental and technical experts from organizations such as Sightline Institute and The Brookings Institution. According to independent research conducted by CEOs for Cities, one point of Walk Score adds up to $3,000 to home values. Find your neighborhood at http://www.walkscore.com.
Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/multimedia/home/20141022006016/en/
Contacts:
Kari Dilloo, 206-588-6863
press@redfin.com
