WASHINGTON, DC - Online real estate broker Sawbuck Realty (www.sawbuck.com) today launched the first location-aware mobile real estate search website, allowing homebuyers to quickly search for homes from any web-enabled phone. Sawbuck is the only brokerage to design a site specifically for mobile phones that detects the users' location using their smartphone's GPS.
Sawbuck also added service in the San Francisco Bay Area. As an area well-known for its unreliable iPhone service, San Francisco homebuyers are particularly in need of a platform-agnostic way to search for homes when on the go.
"It was an easy decision to focus on a mobile site instead of an application. It seems like everyone is trying to create the next killer iPhone app and ignoring the millions of people using other smartphones," says Guy Wolcott, Sawbuck's CEO. "We wanted to be accessible to everyone by creating a site that works across all platforms, yet still offers the benefits of knowing where you are."
Viewing websites on mobile phones can be a slow and painful process, but Sawbuck Mobile is optimized to load quickly on phones with slower connections. Compared to an app, a mobile site does not require a download, opening a separate program to see search results, or a specific mobile platform such as iPhone, Android or Blackberry.
The location-aware feature makes the site unique. Visitors to Sawbuck Mobile (m.sawbuck.com) immediately will see a list of nearby listings and open houses based on their current location. Also, they can jump to nearby areas, refine their search, save their favorites or quickly see recently viewed homes.
Currently, the mobile site includes listings in metro areas served by Sawbuck: Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Southern California (Los Angeles, Orange County, Inland Empire, San Diego), San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
Sawbuck connects buyers and sellers with top local real estate agents, streamlines their transactions, and saves them thousands of dollars up front and hundreds more every year. Buyers who work with Sawbuck's agent partners get a below-market mortgage from reputable lenders such as Bank of America.
Sawbuck is the first real estate broker to establish mortgage alliances not to profit, but to save buyers money. The company subsidizes every mortgage, driving down the interest rate, and offers a $1,000 guarantee if a customer finds a better mortgage deal.
Throughout December 2009, Sawbuck compared the 30-year fixed mortgage rate available to its customers with the national average rate as reported in Bankrate.com's weekly survey of lenders, a reliable indicator of mortgage rates for the last 20 years. The average Sawbuck rate was 0.41 percent better. On a $400,000 mortgage, that's a savings of $107 per month, or $38,520 over the life of the loan.
In December 2009, 5,471 San Francisco-area homes sold with an average sales price of $517,043. If those buyers used Sawbuck, they would have saved $138 a month, totaling $49,680 over the life of the loan.
Sellers receive a 20 percent refund of the listing commission at closing; for a $500,000 house that would normally pay a seller's agent commission of three percent, the savings would be $3,000.
Sawbuck Realty www.sawbuck.com is an online real estate broker that combines an industry-leading website with an award-winning, consumer-friendly business model. The company connects buyers and sellers with top local real estate agents, streamlines their transactions, and saves them money at every turn. Buyers who work with Sawbuck's agent partners get a below-market mortgage, saving thousands up front and hundreds every year. Sellers receive a 20 percent refund of the listing commission at closing. Sawbuck's site, service and model provide radical transparency and consumer value that is unique in the world of real estate. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., Sawbuck's network of real estate agent partners currently serve the Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Northern Virginia, San Francisco Bay Area, Southern California and Washington, D.C. markets. The company will expand into Boston and Providence, R.I. in the next few months.
Source: Sawbuck Realty