Contents:
6 weeks of research, design and refinement went into my Properly Here capstone project. Here you can see each stage of the design process in detail.
<aside> 🗨️
In their words:
Properly.ca is a prop-tech company that is disrupting the real estate industry. They aim to eliminate the headaches of double mortgages, temporary housing, or settling for something less than perfect. Their direct-to-consumer model and financial products allow users to sell properties instantly or buy properties before needing to sell their own homes. Many customers have a lot of difficulties understanding this new real estate model, which leads to hesitancy or abandonment of sales processes, especially without the personal touch of a real, human real estate agent.
</aside>
<aside> 💬
In my words:
I wondered if it was going to be problematic to focus my capstone project on the Toronto real estate market. I’m in Central Europe! I’ve lived in Scotland and Czechia and know that the property markets in both countries are drastically different – in terms of law, business practices, mortgages, and other details – so I expected that the Toronto real estate market would also be different from what I know. However, I decided that it was worth a try – all research could be conducted online (it was August 2021 and Toronto was under strict COVID lockdown like most of the world), plus the course instructors lived in Toronto so could give feedback if I made wrong assumptions…
I created the table below to analyse the competition. On the left you can see the services that Properly.ca offer. The other columns show how competitors match Properly.ca in their offering. As you can see, New Era Real Estate is the closest competitor:
With another student I interviewed people who had experience buying and selling property in Toronto. The interviews were conducted via videocall (which was recorded with the interviewee’s permission). This was both due to geography (I’m in central Europe and the interviewees were in Toronto) and due to social-distancing measures required against the COVID virus.
Before conducting the interviews I created the guide below: