House Hunt

HouseHunt is a Property Portal that I created as part of my masters in Product Design. 

The system was my first dive into creating an online platform and gave me an introduction into Adobe XD.

Product Summary

The system offers a range of different services for the property sector. 

For private treaty sales, the system allows for a  simple and transparent bidding process by supporting third party proof of funds approval, online bidding and finally, 24/7 notifications between all stakeholders.

 For Rentals, the system allows tenants to create individual ‘Tenant’ profiles with all of their details and references. With these profiles, tenants can then apply for rental properties on the site with just one click.The system also includes a free lease creation tool that takes details from accepted tenant profiles and property adverts and combines them to build a rental lease.

Technical Setup

Web (PHP / Laravel)

Technical Description

The system was originally set up on an Amazon S3 instance, however to save on long term costs, I had the platform moved to a small Digital Ocean Droplet which was a cheaper server to maintain. 

Project Learnings

As this was the first platform I had developed and launched, I learned a lot. 

Aside from learning how to use software like XD to create multiple iterations of prototypes, this project gave me the opportunity to find, hire and manage contractor engineers and designers.

The project also showed me the importance of user research, prototyping and testing during product development.

Interesting Notes

HouseHunt and I operate the largest network of rental Facebook groups within Ireland with over 150,000 members.

When developing the platform, I reached out to a number of people within these groups to conduct user research. I completed several interviews and utilised questionnaires to gain knowledge from agents, tenants and landlords. The results from this research shaped the platform I designed.