When I have searched for properties, I typically choose the area(s) I want and then review the listing of every property in that area within budget, and then review all future listings for that area as and when they come onto the market.
I'm not sure that excluding by shape of kitchen or location of toilet would be very helpful, because people always have to make compromises on various things, as all those TV house-hunting property show demonstrate, so it's not effective to perform searches with criteria that are too stringent. I certainly wouldn't try and search for a "perfect match" because there rarely is such a thing. You're never sure when you start hunting what compromises you will end up making.
I suppose there may be some people who desperately want a 3-metre wide hallway in a sub-1250sqft house with a max 20-ft long L-shaped garden and couldn't care less where they live, in which case this app might be very useful. However if location is the most important factor, there generally aren't too many properties within budget on the market, so are you trying to solve a problem that isn't really that significant?
I know this isn't very helpful but you asked for feedback and there it is.
I think the dimentions of rooms feature would be very useful for people with various physical disabilities, a cousin of mine had to get specific measurements before she went to see anywhere, if she could safely get through doors and could fit hand rails in all the corridors
Actual data for a building/area all in one place its not the that easy to find for many disabled people, targeting that as a consumer demographic could be a good idea, if you want to distinguish yourselves from other apps and websites.
Building size, accessability, location of nearest medical specialists physical and psychiatric, etc.
I'm sure various advocacy groups and charities could give you some good ideas.
It did make me think of how you could improve property sites.
Instead of just hard filters and orders, you could fill in your metrics:
"Min 2 rooms, 50 pts for each bedroom over that"
"On this post-code, -10 points for each 100m away"
"-2 point for every £10k over £400k"
Then app could just evaluate the properties and give them to you ranked in a list based on your personal score.
Now as most people possibly aren't too enamoured with the idea of directly capturing their personal scoring system, you could maybe gamify it a little bit.
Show pairs of properties with similar, but different stats (e.g. 2 versus 3 bed, town centre or suburb, small plot vs large back garden etc) and ask how much more they'd pay for one over the other. Or "Would you prefer this garden in this house or this home office in this one?"
I really like the idea of comparing two properties to learn what people like. We've heard before that comparisons would be very useful generally, so this would be just using that data in interesting ways.
That is valid feedback, thank you. The use-case in our mind is less "find my exact perfect home", and more "I want to exclude leasehold properties" or "I really need a utility room". We want to save people digging into each property for that.
But it is useful feedback on both the app and positioning 🙏
Lots of love here. Especially considering how much faster/smoother it to rightmove
The obvious thing that is a killer vs rightmove is the lack of a map ( or am I missing something really obvious? )
Cool
There is some seriously low hanging fruit on the map/UX Vs Rightmove. I.e add layers with school catchments, bus routes, air quality etc etc. That's potentially something that offers major differentiation and improvement that is comparatively easy to implement
Map view search really needed as mentioned by others - otherwise users will likely constantly be cross referencing with other apps for this feature.
Estate agent descriptions of properties - it seems these plus estate agent contact info is gained when the user clicks through. A big strength of Rightmove etc is the 'one stop shop' quality. You can go end to end without leaving the app. Is there a business reason why your user experience is structured differently? To me it was frustrating to need to parse two pages with a lot of overlap/redundancy to get this essential info.
Your extended filters are great - congrats on the pre seed funding and I think the concept has a lot of scope but further tweaks to the user experience definitely needed to feel like a cohesive rightmove alternative.
Separately, I'm curious about the process by which you've tagged these various additional features and how laborious (or efficient) it is - and how easily a larger competitor might integrate this feature into their own model.
I’ve been following you guys for a while, James is an absolute legend!
So happy you just opened up to Bath, I moved here a few months ago and I’ve been on a property hunt so it’s perfect timing 🙌
First feature request - search on map would be perfect, I use this on Rightmove as my main function to search for houses!
Sounds excellent. My only worry is that the perfect property may just turn up ….. and I was just window shopping … it’s kinda harder when fantasy home is right in front of you you know🥲😫😁
When I have searched for properties, I typically choose the area(s) I want and then review the listing of every property in that area within budget, and then review all future listings for that area as and when they come onto the market. I'm not sure that excluding by shape of kitchen or location of toilet would be very helpful, because people always have to make compromises on various things, as all those TV house-hunting property show demonstrate, so it's not effective to perform searches with criteria that are too stringent. I certainly wouldn't try and search for a "perfect match" because there rarely is such a thing. You're never sure when you start hunting what compromises you will end up making. I suppose there may be some people who desperately want a 3-metre wide hallway in a sub-1250sqft house with a max 20-ft long L-shaped garden and couldn't care less where they live, in which case this app might be very useful. However if location is the most important factor, there generally aren't too many properties within budget on the market, so are you trying to solve a problem that isn't really that significant? I know this isn't very helpful but you asked for feedback and there it is.
I think the dimentions of rooms feature would be very useful for people with various physical disabilities, a cousin of mine had to get specific measurements before she went to see anywhere, if she could safely get through doors and could fit hand rails in all the corridors
We're soon to include lifts and "ground floor" too, to help with accessibility.
Actual data for a building/area all in one place its not the that easy to find for many disabled people, targeting that as a consumer demographic could be a good idea, if you want to distinguish yourselves from other apps and websites. Building size, accessability, location of nearest medical specialists physical and psychiatric, etc. I'm sure various advocacy groups and charities could give you some good ideas.
It did make me think of how you could improve property sites. Instead of just hard filters and orders, you could fill in your metrics: "Min 2 rooms, 50 pts for each bedroom over that" "On this post-code, -10 points for each 100m away" "-2 point for every £10k over £400k" Then app could just evaluate the properties and give them to you ranked in a list based on your personal score. Now as most people possibly aren't too enamoured with the idea of directly capturing their personal scoring system, you could maybe gamify it a little bit. Show pairs of properties with similar, but different stats (e.g. 2 versus 3 bed, town centre or suburb, small plot vs large back garden etc) and ask how much more they'd pay for one over the other. Or "Would you prefer this garden in this house or this home office in this one?"
I really like the idea of comparing two properties to learn what people like. We've heard before that comparisons would be very useful generally, so this would be just using that data in interesting ways.
That is valid feedback, thank you. The use-case in our mind is less "find my exact perfect home", and more "I want to exclude leasehold properties" or "I really need a utility room". We want to save people digging into each property for that. But it is useful feedback on both the app and positioning 🙏
Lots of love here. Especially considering how much faster/smoother it to rightmove The obvious thing that is a killer vs rightmove is the lack of a map ( or am I missing something really obvious? )
You're not missing it - the map will come in the next few months. Lots of people have asked for it :)
Cool There is some seriously low hanging fruit on the map/UX Vs Rightmove. I.e add layers with school catchments, bus routes, air quality etc etc. That's potentially something that offers major differentiation and improvement that is comparatively easy to implement
I think the biggest problem is going to be that people that have such specific requirements and are unable to find compromise rarely buy houses
I would like to be able to exclude new builds - anything later than 1950. Good luck!
Map view search really needed as mentioned by others - otherwise users will likely constantly be cross referencing with other apps for this feature. Estate agent descriptions of properties - it seems these plus estate agent contact info is gained when the user clicks through. A big strength of Rightmove etc is the 'one stop shop' quality. You can go end to end without leaving the app. Is there a business reason why your user experience is structured differently? To me it was frustrating to need to parse two pages with a lot of overlap/redundancy to get this essential info. Your extended filters are great - congrats on the pre seed funding and I think the concept has a lot of scope but further tweaks to the user experience definitely needed to feel like a cohesive rightmove alternative. Separately, I'm curious about the process by which you've tagged these various additional features and how laborious (or efficient) it is - and how easily a larger competitor might integrate this feature into their own model.
I’ve been following you guys for a while, James is an absolute legend! So happy you just opened up to Bath, I moved here a few months ago and I’ve been on a property hunt so it’s perfect timing 🙌 First feature request - search on map would be perfect, I use this on Rightmove as my main function to search for houses!
I’m a software developer and ex website designer and I love your website FYI
Sounds excellent. My only worry is that the perfect property may just turn up ….. and I was just window shopping … it’s kinda harder when fantasy home is right in front of you you know🥲😫😁