Sawbuck (Real Estate Website)
Sawbuck.com is an online real estate brokerage headquartered in Washington, D.C. Sawbuck.com is a real estate information site that provides property listing data, recent sales data, and geography-based market statistics. Sawbuck’s network of real estate partner agents currently serve the Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Houston, Inland Empire, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Providence, San Diego, the SF Bay Area, and Washington, DC Metro Area real estate markets.
Business Model
“Sawbuck has turned the wealth of info that is the MLS into an easily accessible, user-friendly tool for getting to the data a homebuyer needs.” Prospective homebuyers can use the website to search broker databases, past sales records and third-party appraisals, while the company's partner agents handle property access, legal paperwork and negotiations.
iPhone App
The Sawbuck Real Estate iPhone app was launched in January 2011. The app offers sophisticated mobile home search, "intended to function as a buyer’s primary search tool". The app allows users to view listing photos, price changes, property details, similar listings and open house information. Prospective homebuyers can also plan tours, record photos and videos, take notes, and complete tappable checklists to help them remember details about the homes they have toured. One of the most unique aspects of the app is how it "combines social media and house-hunting".
Website
Sawbuck.com was significantly upgraded in July 2009. On the new version of the site, unregistered visitors can view homes for sale on a map, view live market activity through the news feed, access real estate statistics (including a Market Health Score) and track property listings via custom RSS feeds. Registered visitors can also view recently sold homes on a map and track property listings via email alerts.
Features of the Sawbuck website include:
- News feed similar to Facebook which provides status updates for homes such as price changes, open houses or going off the market
- Map-driven home search that is not confined to geographic boundaries. Homebuyers can pan, scroll and zoom the map, and the current area changes as they do, while still showing all the listings, even those outside the search area
- Custom videos for every listing that allow buyers to hear about the main details of a home and see pictures without having to scroll, click or read
- Market Health Score, which combines metrics for inventory, change in median sales prices, pull-through and "equilibrium" (balance between new listings, price reductions, contracts and sales)
- Location-aware mobile real-estate search website specifically for mobile phones that detects the users' location using GPS
Funding
Sawbuck closed on $2 million in financing led by Dallas-based media company A. H. Belo Corp. The D.C.-based online real estate broker will use the funds to expand nationally and enhance its website.
Awards
- In 2008, Sawbuck was awarded the Innovator Award for “Most Innovative Brokerage” by Inman News, the leading real estate news company. The winners in 2006 and 2007 were ReMax and Coldwell Banker, respectively.
- In 2009, Guy Wolcott, CEO of Sawbuck, was named as one of Inman’s “100 Most Influential Real Estate Leaders.”
- In 2010, Sawbuck was given the "Hottest DC Area Companies" award.
See also
- Internet Data Exchange
- Multiple Listing Service
- Real Estate Broker
- Real Estate Transaction Specification