GetHome - Innovative Real Estate Marketplace
Challenge
The aim was to create the first website in Poland with real estate listings (houses and apartments for sale and for rent, from both primary and secondary markets) that would ensure the best user experience possible during the whole buyer’s journey - from finding the portal itself to choosing the most suitable offer for every user. Property Group Sp. z o.o. provided a website prototype - including a business concept, UX / UI in the form of hi-fi mockups and style guide, as well as requirements for the tech stack updated during the project. The Product Owner and, if necessary, dedicated tech, design and SEO specialists took part in the project from the Client's side.
Solution
We decided to use Python, along with its framework Django, for the backend layer. This was mostly due to the fact that Python works well for Rapid Application Development, which gives the developers a lot of possibilities when it comes to prototyping, taking advantage of ready-to-use components, and speeding up the development process. Indeed - the first effects were visible almost immediately. At the same time, Django is a powerful web framework supported by a large and active community, not to mention substantial documentation. It also makes it easier and faster to build advanced web apps with less code. When it comes to the frontend, we chose React.js. The decision was influenced by the Client’s great experience with both SEO and React itself, which proved to work better than i.e Angular in previous projects. These technologies also formed part of the Client’s tech stack, which in turn minimises the costs of maintaining and developing the product further, making it easier to collaborate when using common programming languages. Challenges Ensuring discoverability Google Search is one of the most effective channels for acquiring new users. Our Client, who has an in-house SEO team was fully aware of that, which is why proper optimisation of the whole website for search engines was the main requirement when developing it. We kept that in mind from the very beginning, assessing the impact that any changes and improvements might have on search results. We managed to find an optimal solution: the portal was built with React components, which were rendered to HTML already on the server-side, and then sent to the client. Therefore, the client receives a ready HTML code which is static and could be properly interpreted by the search bots. Making sure that the web portal is intuitive and easy to use - with a simple search and no duplicates Since primary and secondary markets are quite different, we needed a solution that would help us categorise the offers any way we want it, while keeping the search for listings as efficient as possible. That’s why we decided to take advantage of the search engine Elasticsearch. This largely influenced the speed of the searches and thus, the user experience. One of the other major challenges for GetHome, however, was the existence of duplicates when it came to the listings (which affected the credibility of both the offers and the whole portal). Therefore, finding the way to track those duplicates was one of the Client's main priorities during the development of GetHome.pl. Developing such a precise mechanism required taking into account multiple attributes of the properties and handling a lot of exceptions. The listings of the same properties are now “merged” and displayed within one view, which is why the user doesn’t find the same house or apartment multiple times.
Results
GetHome is the first marketplace in Poland that offers a comprehensive overview of properties for sale and rent, paired with the best user experience - with precise locations and no duplicated offers or ads. The website presents apartments and houses from primary and secondary markets, putting the users directly in touch with those who are responsible for specific offers. The portal was developed with a focus on SEO and the speed of use. We reached the stage that now helps us add new features relatively easy, which we will most definitely take advantage of when implementing new functionalities.
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