Tom Mangas, who previously served as CEO at Starwood Hotels & Resorts, co-founded DADO after realizing that the buyer was still not getting the full picture in residential real estate. He shares “We took inspiration from Trip Advisor where this kind of user generated content redefined how travel was purchased. Our goal is to rebalance the scales in favor of the home buyer.”
DADO challenges home seller exclusive marketing content with unbiased crowd sourcing to streamline and add transparency to the home search. Their algorithms and content delivery create a hyper local and personalized experience. The result is for a more open, comprehensive real estate profile ecosystem where properties are prioritized by the local community, leading to new discoveries within a target neighborhood. Plus, the app navigation is highly intuitive and lightning-fast thanks to the principal development engineer, an IBM Watson alum.
“Searching for a new home is still overwhelming and often times not authentic. Information is incomplete and locked behind a century old industry. Buyers need to know what a house really looks like, inside and out, hold the Photoshop. How are the schools? What about the rest of the neighborhood?” says DADO’s Chief Marketing Officer, Rebecca Fretty.
In order for home buyers to have the most complete information available on each property, the app combines crowd sourced property profiles with public record data. Plus, DADO integrated Great School ratings for public and private schools near each property and the popular Walk Score, which provides a quick metric for accessibility to mass transit, walking and biking.
“This app aims to support tech-savvy, first time buyers who know more information makes for a better decision,” states co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, Brian Goodman, who has dedicated his career to creating social software and big data analytic platforms that help people make their best discoveries and decisions.
On top of this data now available on each property, the home buyers can personalize their favorite properties with their own pictures, value assessments, ratings, comparisons and personal tags. This builds the quantity and quality of real data available for homes from the home buyer’s perspective.
During development, the founders noticed that home buyers often consult with a circle of unofficial influencers before making a big purchase. So, they ensured that DADO took a social slant: each property can be rated and shared amongst friends, family and the real estate agent in real time. Properties are then ranked and sorted quickly.
DADO is in beta test in Pittsburgh, PA and Richmond, VA with a nationwide rollout scheduled for Q4. DADO is partnering with Bloomfield neighborhood locals to host a Twilight Home Walk June 19th as their kick off to introduce Pittsburgh locals to their home buyer centric house hunting app. And in Richmond, DADO will be sponsoring the June 20th House Story event where locals will tour the 1853 Historic Charles C Everett building under renovation.
DADO will also be a summer sponsor of Habitat for Humanity. For every app download and registration DADO will be making a $1.00 donation to the local Pittsburgh and Richmond chapters up to $1,000.00 in each community. “Partnering with the local Habitat for Humanity was an obvious fit for us because of its commitment to helping all families build strength and stability through shelter that our home buyers can immediately identify with,” said Mangas.
DADO is currently available for free on iOS devices in the US market with plans in place to launch on Android by year-end.
Please visit https://www.dado.house/ for more information on DADO and to see Jenn & Dan navigate their first home purchase.
To download the app: https://itunes.apple.com/US/app/id1346231226
Habitat for Humanity of Greater Pittsburgh’s mission is to bring people together to build homes, communities, and hope in Allegheny County. Our vision is a world where everyone has a decent place to call home. We are an affiliate of Habitat for Humanity International, a global, nonprofit organization that is dedicated to eliminating substandard housing. We serve income-eligible families who would otherwise have a limited opportunity for homeownership or home repair. Our work is made possible by thousands of volunteers, staff, board of directors, corporate support and philanthropic funding.
Richmond Metropolitan Habitat for Humanity is a nonprofit housing organization that seeks to put God’s love into action by bringing people together to build homes, communities and hope. Since 1986, Richmond Habitat has served more than 345 families by welcoming people of all races, religions and nationalities to construct, rehabilitate or preserve homes.
HOUSE STORY is a monthly architecture tour and storytelling event. Refreshments, socializing and networking. Because every house has a story!
You can find House Story at https://www.facebook.com/HOUSE-STORY-1278014455655405
