Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman told Inman Real Estate Connect attendees in San Francisco yesterday that his “customer first” brokerage is likely to be in 16 markets by year-end 2010. The site is currently in 12 markets and employs 100 agents.

Redfin’s apparent progress is seen by some as evidence that the advantage goes to brokerages that minimize their risk (namely, keeping agents around that underperform). With Redfin, agents are on salary and don’t do prospecting. Instead, they focus on customer service, and are paid, in part, based on satisfaction levels.

“We’ve been doubling every year,” and have had a good run for the past 12 to 16 months, despite the bad economy, said Kelman. The past two months, however, have been flat as tax incentives have expired. Kelman further noted that the Bay Area is Redfin’s most profitable market, although Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles are the company’s largest revenue producers.

Redfin got in the national press recently because one of the 10 Russian spies had been employed as an agent. Kelman noted that the Boston-based agent was “a very dedicated person. It didn’t gibe with the person selling homes for us.”