The MLS was built around sellers. Gitcha wants to change that

As a custom homebuilder, Dan Cooper was accustomed to creating properties that met the needs of his clients. “I have owned a design and build company since 2004, and as I got immersed into that business and industry, I realized that our best niche was fulfilling the visions of buyers’ that couldn’t find what they were looking for in existing home inventory and that was a concept that always sat with me,” Cooper, the founder and CEO of buyer listing service technology company Gitcha, said. It was the Great Recession, however, that really started Cooper thinking about finding better ways to know what buyers in a given market are looking for. As a builder navigating the market downturn, Cooper said he and his family were forced to sell their own house, but the property ended up sitting on the market for years. “The genesis of all of this was as a seller competing with other similar properties at a similar price point. I would love to know what active buyers in the market are looking for, so I could market the strengths of my property and ensure it gets in front of them,” Cooper said. “I kept thinking it would be nice if I could just look through buyers and find a possible match for my...