Real Estate Cross-Review Website

Concept
A comprehensive real estate cross-review platform that aims to provide users with authentic
and comprehensive property information and evaluations based on the living experience to
help buyers and tenants make more informed property decisions. The site will be very
objective and ask the reviewer to first provide enough positive commentary and also give
objective negative comments or suggestions. It also allows users to cross-assess each other as
to whether the information provided is objective and trustworthy. The platform also provides
an opportunity for property-related businesses and neighbourhood service providers to
interact with potential customers.

Platform to be distributed:
Desktop webpage / Mobile webpage / iOS App / Android App

Core Functions:
1. User Account Management: Users can create an account, set personal preferences,
save search history and favourite listings.
2. Property Aggregation: Provides a comprehensive list of properties for sale and for
rent with detailed descriptions, pictures, prices, etc.
3. User Rating System: Users can rate the properties, share their living experience and
comments (with photos and/or videos) on the pros and cons of the properties.
4. Merchant Account System: two types of accounts: property-related accounts (real
estate agents, property developers, sales…) and general merchant accounts
(renovation, solicitor, inspector, electrician…), providing information release and
advertisement placement functions.
5. Advanced Search and Recommendation Engine: Recommends properties based on
user preferences and historical behaviour.
6. Interactive elements: including Q&A module, appointment viewing, virtual reality
viewing experience, etc.

Homepage with Map and Property Assets:

Home assets for sale or rent will be displayed in a dynamic manner on the home page map.
The user will be asked to allow location when opening the app. The top of the home page can
be a search bar. Users can search for area names, postcodes, etc.
The middle is occupied by a map (e.g. Google Maps or OpenStreetMap). The map will show
properties near the user's location. Random properties are displayed, each property stays for
two seconds, disappears and the next one is displayed. After the user enters the search area
via the search bar, the filter is displayed from the right end. the filter includes:
 Category: Buy / Rent / Hotel / Commercial / Other
  Type: House / Apartment / T&V / Land / Farm
 Price range: slider constraint range (depends on the property type above)
 Bedrooms: slider constraint range (1 2 3 4 5 6+)
 Car spaces: sliding scale (1 2 3 4 5 6+)
 Land Size: (only for "House" type) text field for land size (unit: m2, Hectares)
 Options: whether or not to filter out sold houses
 Keywords: keyword search bar

The listed assets are displayed in scrolling carousel effect (to be determined by the designer).
User may click/tap the property and browse the details.

Examples:

Individual Asset Page:

On each individual property product page, the top 30% of the page is devoted to the details of
the home. This includes photos (clickable to enlarge), price range, address, house details
(number of bedrooms, bathrooms, car parking), land area. One of the agent's detailed
description of the visit can also be clicked on and displayed as a pop-up window. As well as
the average rating of the current home based on all users’ comments and ratings.

The bottom 70% of the area is used to display user reviews. Each review can be bookmarked,
thumb-up, thumb-down and shared.
Each review can contain maximum 4 photos, and the review can also be replied. The replies
are folded by default and can be expanded by clicking the “+”.

At the bottom of the property page, user may click ➕to add comments with or without photos.
User comments may include:
 Property Reviews: Allows users to rate the property, including environment, facilities,
neighbourhood, etc.
 Former Tenant Reviews: Allows former tenant or tenants to share their living
experience.
 Community and Neighbourhood Reviews: Evaluate the neighbourhood environment,
traffic, commercial facilities, etc.
 Questions: may raise questions and wait for the answers from other users, agents,
developers or professionals.

In order to balance the objectivity of evaluating real estate products, users submitting a
review must first select at least 2 of the 16 options regarding the merits of this property
before writing their own subjective evaluation.

Location Price Schools Public transit

Parks Shopping Amenities Safety
Energy efficiency Parking Quality Strata
Water/mount view Quietness Value potentials Neighbourhood

User also need to provide their rating to the property. The default score of a property is 60.
User needs to use sliding bar to choose a score between 40 to 90. There will be a backend
algorithm to calculate the final score based on the average score and the number of user.
Featured Functions:
1. Paid-to-publish: Property-related merchants can release paid information/evaluations
to increase the diversity of information.
2. Intelligent advertising system: Ordinary merchants (solicitor, brokers, appraiser…)
can enhance their exposure through a variety of payment methods, such as monthly or
pay-per-article adverts.
3. Market Analysis Report: Provides analyses of real estate market trends to assist users
in making purchasing decisions.

Registration and Security:

1. User Account Management
 Registration/Login: Support users to create account and log in, provide social
media account quick login option.
 Profile Settings: Users can edit their profile, including contact information,
living history, etc.
 Preferences: Users can set real estate preferences such as location, property
type, budget, etc.
2. User account verification: mobile verification
3. Merchant account:
  Business landline verification
 Business registration certificate (certified copy)
 Real estate agent licence (certified copy)
 *Option to purchase premium subscription when registering new account
4. Merchant account (individual sales):
 Mobile verification
 Personal identity (certified copy)
 Certification of practice (certified copy)
 *Option to purchase premium subscription when registering new account
5. Privacy Protection: Protect users' personal information and transaction data.

Mini Store:
1. Merchants (premium subscriber only) are allowed to open mini store and list a range
of substantial or virtual products available to the customers. For example, property
report, legal service package, accountant service package, removal service, etc.
2. General user account and individual merchant account (sales) are not allow to have
mini store.

Payment Channel:
1. User account: payment channel in the Merchant’s mini store for users to purchase
professional services from authorities (e.g., solicitors, appraisers) or purchase
products from vendors (e.g., property reports).
2. Merchant account: payment channel for merchants to purchase platform products (or
subscription) to enhance the exposure of their information and/or adverts. For
example:
 Premium subscription: to enable mini store feature.
 Comment exposure: post comment under certain property with highlights and
exposures.
 Commercial advert: embed commercial adverts under property or in the
comments.

Backend Management (desktop only):

1. User account (general and merchant) management.
2. Property
3. Content Monitoring: Monitor published content to ensure quality and compliance.
4. User Feedback: Collect user feedback/complaints to continuously optimise the
platform experience.
 Vision
Market Positioning:
 To be one of the most trusted sources of information and evaluation in the real estate
market.
 Provide users with one-stop real estate decision support services.
Development Direction:
 Technological innovation: introduce more advanced search engine technology to
enhance the virtual reality property viewing experience.
 Market Expansion: Gradually expand the service scope to cover more cities and
regions.
 Partnerships: Establish partnerships with more property agents, financial institutions
and legal advisors.
Profit model:
 Advertising revenue: advertising and promotion fees from merchants.
 Value-added services: e.g. providing professional market analysis reports, premium
membership services, etc.
 Data services: selling anonymised market data and analysis reports to property
developers or research institutes.
Long-term goal:
 Become a well-known and authoritative platform in the industry to increase brand
awareness and market share.
 Form a strong community base to encourage user interaction and participation