Homebid
Homebid.com Real Estate Auctions

Homebid.com revolutionized the real-estate industry by providing the option to not use brokerage firms; and provided a complete system of tools to automate the reporting, transaction and legal documents needed for the end-to-end process of finding and buying a home. Zaudhaus was brought in to plan-out, design, and manage the creation and implementation of the site from end-to-end. The service was purchased by Caldwell Banker in 2001 and eliminated.
Year Built: 2000-2001
Project duration: 8 months
Zaudhaus role: Interaction design, Information Architecture, Visual Design

Services
Interface Design & Application design

Industries
Consumer Services
STATS
RELATED
CHALLENGE + SOLUTION
The Challenge: Develop a consumer-friendly experience and simple-to-use application for managing the sale or purchase of real estate. Provide tools for large volume, industry property purchases as well as the tools for single home-buying consumers. Establish a model that is easier to use and more engaging (and easier) than the current model.

At the time, the only rough model we could look at for home auctions was eBay - and they weren't really that organized yet. So, for the most part we were developing a consumer-styled service for something most closely related to the stock market. We built on that idea and established the notion of a portfolio that users managed. The dashboard provided quick review and access to the properties being watched or bid upon. We strove to also make the system as consumer-friendly as possible with explanatory graphics and clear illustrative diagrams.