Sixteen years ago this fall, I was at Sun Devil Stadium when Arizona State’s football team beat the University of Arizona for the first time in nine years. Students (and alumni, such as myself) stormed the field.

After wandering aimlessly, I went over to the stands in front of the band and had a friend lift me to the top rung of the bleachers’ guardrail. There, looking out upon hundreds of people on the field, I took my free gold pom-pom provided at the gate, waved it three times and watched as everyone erupted in an A-S-U cheer. It was pretty cool, watching the reaction to a random act in front of the band and feeling a sense of power because of it.

Redfin’s much the same way. Glenn says something or the company issues a press release and the real estate blogs jump too, reporting whatever happened with varying degrees of cynicism or admiration, depending on one’s point of view. Sometimes it’s tempting to think we, the real estate blogging community, aid Redfin’s struggle for existence in that all that we right adds to the company’s public relations monster.

Why do we as a group spend so much time writing about Redfin? Maybe it’s an effort to reverse the spin and present the truth to those willing to look at the company with a critical eye.

Make no mistake. Despite the hype, Redfin is struggling by nearly any measure. For all the bold talk of expansion into additional markets, progress has been extremely slow. Greg compared the total sales for Redfin to those of local real estate god Russell Shaw. It’s no contest. True, Russell has been doing this longer than Redfin but he also hasn’t had the benefit of $20 million in venture capital (though his ever-present face on my television makes me think he does have a printing press stowed away.)

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