- Application
- Branding System
- UX/UI Design
Surecave is a cloud-based B2B and B2C real estate services prototype designed to bring asset management, leasing management, and general tenant and seeker visibility all under one digital roof.
Challenge
Today’s apartment search experience consists of seekers visiting many sites filtering through endless listings, some of which are duplicates, to find only a handful of promising apartments. Seekers then reach out to the listing broker or landlord to see if it’s available and some times it’s already too late. As a broker, generating leads is largely a result of the inbound seeker inquiries or referrals while Landlords largely stay in the dark to the process.
Despite all of the technology and information available today, these parties experience a high level of uncertainty in qualifying each others wants and needs. Therein lies the core problem we set out to solve for Surecave.
Problems To Solve
Determining listing price is done through stale, incomparable data
Landlords deal with rolling vacancy rates, an inaccurate measure of supply / demand and lost income
The real estate services tools available on today's market are fragmented
Pricing data, property marketing and tenant / lead management are not integrated into a single vertical
Surecave is on a mission to re-architect NYC's rental market.
Approach
Real estate is an incredibly polar industry. There are a large amount of extremely successful players as well as disenfranchised investors and amateurs losing money month after month.
Our long-term vision for this product was to create a bridge between these extremes and layer in helpful tools and resources along the way to put invaluable information and strategic decision-making in the hands of every day users. Not just by developing a great product but developing clear value propositions, we partnered with the Surecave team to build trust and credibility for those demographics that are weary of the real estate process.
Loud. Fast-Paced. Aggressive. Chaotic. Sounds like New York City. These adjectives served as the juxtaposition for our user experience. Easy, relaxed, clear, calm — renting your next NYC apartment with Surecave is all of the above.
Planning for 5 Unique User Types
1. Seekers — users who are actively looking for an apartment; optimized to make the search experience as simple and as actionable as possible.
2. Tenants — users who were seekers, applied to an apartment and were approved by a landlord to rent the apartment.
3. Landlords — users who own an apartment, own a property with many apartments, or own many properties with many apartments.
4. Brokers — users who can pre-register on Surecave by providing their name, broker ID, email address, cell phone number, and primary area they work in. Surecave representatives can access this list at anytime.
5. Service Providers — users who are contractors qualified and promoted by Surecave to serve tenants and landlords in various service capacities pertaining to properties. These are handymen, plumbers, painters, etc.
Design Direction
We Started With Brand
Our goal was to build a compelling product story that removed users from the idea of paying rent or managing a property and instead, transported them to a place where these tasks were actually exciting. How do we make paying rent rewarding? How do we create an experience where finding a tenant rewarding or closing on a broker commission is rewarding beyond the financial gain but on an emotional level?
UX Strategy
With all the features required to serve 5 core user groups, simple and intuitive interfaces were a must. To accomplish this, we leveraged color and simple visual cues and patterns to distinguish between personas and their respective flows.
Color Coded User Persona Modules
Seeker: Robust Search
The value of the Surecave ecosystem graduates from the initial Seeker vertical. Finding the perfect place live starts here.
Seeker Property Search & Results View
Chat: Removing Walls Between Users
An important part of our design was developing a simple, intuitive chat functionality to facilitate real-time communication between Seekers, Landlords, Tenants, Brokers, and Service Providers.
Tenants
Optimized for ease of use to manage rent payments for the apartment and to improve their credit score over time. Tenants can also review landlords and apartments with a unique ‘scoring’ approach developed by Surecave.
Landlords
Arguably the app’s most robust user, Landlords are looking to optimize their income, review applicants, manage showings, accept rent payments, market their listings, reduce rolling vacancy rates, and see key analytics on both their portfolio and market data.
Brokers
The go-between user and glue to the entire process: Brokers. They connect Seekers to Landlords and manage communication, tour scheduling, data analytics, listings, and other robust features.
Tenant Dashboard View
Landlord Tenant Management Views
Tenant & Landlord Transaction Process
Broker Views
Service Providers: Work Requests Made Easy
Surecave is an innovative marketplace for the entire real estate lifecycle. Tenants and Landlords alike can easily schedule qualified handymen, plumbers, painters, and more all from the same interface. Time and money saved, predictable income earned.
Service Provider Work Request View
Strategic Planning
Discovery + Design Sprints
Research, Analytics, & Insights
User / Audience Definition
Product Requirements
User Experience
Experience Strategy
Marketing Website
Digital Product + Services
Design Systems + Style Guides
Prototyping & Optimization
Technology
Technical Discovery
Technical Architecture
Quality Assurance
Interactive Prototyping
"We have a fairly large gap to cross - designing a real estate app that delivers on story as heavily as it does utility. A product like Surecave can’t exist solely as a SaaS tool but as a lifestyle platform to pave the way for a new kind of real estate interaction; people that value technology just as much as relationship. Surecave houses both."
Next Project
Application — Move Better, Anywhere