A representative from Belo Interactive Media (a company owned by A.H. Belo Corporation) visited some of The Dallas Morning News’ biggest residential real estate advertisers last week to break the news about their new online real estate venture, according to a source at one of Dallas’ local real estate brokerages. A.H. Belo is expected to send out a press release tomorrow Wednesday outlining the new online real estate partnership involving DMN and Sawbuck Realty. The source added that the Belo rep was especially concerned about confidentiality and made sure to retrieve all promotional materials before leaving the brokerage.
Updated: Tuesday 9:58 a.m.
As Tim pointed out on Frontburner, it’s probable that if the deal is going to happen (and from what I’m hearing there could be a press release as soon as tomorrow) then it will be done with A.H. Belo because they are the parent company of The Dallas Morning News. However, Pierce Allman says Belo Corporation (parent company of TV stations across the country including WFAA-TV Channel 8 locally) in the voice mail. When we get official word on which one it is we’ll let you know. While we track down this piece of information feel free to listen to the voice mail message where Allman outlines the deal between DMN and Sawbuck Realty here:
Wow, Josh, so this is the big story I heard bits and pieces of all last week. Very interesting. Here’s what I know about Sawbuck Realty: it’s an “alternative brokerage” without brick and mortar, launched in the D.C. area, and likes to partner with top-producing, hand-picked real estate agents in a given community. They are expanding rapidly.
Sawbuck’s business model serves consumers at the beginning of a transaction by offering an online, map-based search system for local listings — I mean all local listings, everything in the MLS — hence this new affiliation with The Dallas Morning News is, I suppose, going to take the MLS to the DMN website. Then Sawbuck refers the buyers to an agent in the company’s referral network, in our case, a Dallas agent. They take a referral fee of about 30% from every closed transaction. I guess, in this case, the DMN will take the fee. Looks like they are sending the agent a white hot lead: the company claims that 50% of leads become closings. And get this for drawing in consumers: Sawbuck is said to offer buyers a no-fee mortgage and settlement package, as well as all the property information online at the beginning of a search. Sawbuck’s co-founder, Guy Woolcott, has said his company does a lot of work to qualify the buyers prior to sending that referral. Last year, here’s what he told Inman News:
“We’re actually contributing something to the deal,” Wolcott said. “We’re not just flipping (agents) a lead; we’re giving them a real buyer.”
The company offers live chat on its site so that consumers can ask questions without being connected to an agent and then choose to be connected when they are ready.
The agents that Sawbuck refers buyers to are hand-picked, and the company prefers to partner with experienced, top-producing agents who often are a part of a team, he said.”
My sources tell me they first heard about this Thursday when their giddy DMN ad reps paid them a visit, and they were shown a spiral notebook they had to return and keep very mum about the contents. The company launches Dallas August 1.
My head is swimming. This could be a brilliant partner$hip move on the part of the DMN – what is Belo’s stock symbol again? (Dialing broker now.) They know that 95% of all real estate searches begin on line and online is where real estate is headed. Traditional brokerage models are antiquated — the cost of doing business never goes anywhere but up.
But gosh, how would you like to be a broker who has paid bazillions to advertise in the DMN all these years and now come to find them a competitor colleague? (more…)