Freshouse
Rol
Research
UX strategy
Information architecture
wireframe
prototype
Visual design
Rubro
Real state
Fecha
August 2022
Overview
🖼️ Background
This project arises from my concern for the housing situation in Argentina. Both tenants and owners suffer the consequences of a chaotic real estate market. In this project, I'm going to show that this problem isn't just an impression, and I'm going to outline a process for finding a possible solution that will benefit both tenants and homeowners.
🌱The Challenge
Create a digital product that provides tenants and owners with all the necessary tools to carry out a home rental efficiently and without the need to resort to intermediaries or third parties that generate additional costs
💡Proyect plan
5 weeks of the Design thinking method.
Research Highlights
🎯Research objectives
Desarollamos dos objetivos de investigación que nos ayudaron a direccionar nuestro trabajo e identificar información importante para los usuarios:
Queremos identificar necesidades, frustraciones y experiencias comunes que se repiten entre los usuarios en torno a la problemática que nuestro proyecto intenta resolver.
Queremos reconocer oportunidades de negocio en el contexto inmobiliario, especialmente en alquileres, y la intermediación entre inquilinos y propietarios.
Research methods
Desk research
User interviews
User surveys
affinity diagram
Benchmarking
Defin methods
Personas
Empathy maps
Problem statements
Insights
Value proposition
👨🏻💻full investigation
In this presentation, I will only show you the highlights of the project. Are you interested in knowing the complete investigation? I invite you to read my article on Medium where I detail the entire process. This research is a piece of work that I am particularly proud of, since I put a lot of effort and time into it. The issue of rentals in Argentina is an issue that touches me closely and motivates me deeply. I hope you find it as interesting and valuable as I do.
Published for bootcamp
medium article: Freshouse: The app that reinvents the way of renting. Part 1 (English)
Secondary research: What is the Argentine housing situation like?
🔴 Information about the problem
highlights
Rentals in Argentina have experienced an increase in their price by an average of 64.7% in the last year.
Rental supply in April 2022 decreased 22% compared to April 2021.
Rental prices consume a large part of the purchasing power of Argentine individuals and families.
According to a report by the Association of Grouped Tenants carried out in July 2020, 43% of tenants had to go into debt to pay their rent.
Conclusions:
In Argentina it is necessary to have more than one job (on average) or external help, such as family members, to be able to rent and have remains for other essential expenses.
The rental situation in Argentina is alarming, which allows real estate companies to impose any type of conditions on tenants due to their desperation to find a place to live. However, in the midst of this crisis we find opportunities where we can intervene.
Opportunities for our product
To enter into a rental contract, you must comply with the requirements established by the Argentine rental law. Real estate agents are usually in charge of carrying out all the procedures and for each of them they charge additional amounts, in addition to fees and commissions. But according to the rental law, these procedures and the execution of a rental contract can be carried out by individuals without the need for the intermediation of real estate agents or lawyers.
According to the Association of Grouped Tenants, for a rental house of 42,000 pesos, real estate agencies usually ask for 217,200 pesos for all these procedures.
Our proposal
We will develop a digital tool that facilitates direct rentals, providing users with all the necessary tools to manage rental procedures without incurring additional expenses.
In this way, we will not only be able to help users save a significant amount of money, but we will also be able to reserve 3% of the rental payment for our business.
What about our users?
In this case we have two different types of users. Tenant users and owner users.
In order to understand how our users live the housing situation, identify their needs and recognize the common experiences that are repeated among them, we carry out semi-structured interviews and surveys. These allowed us to obtain a deep understanding and an empathic perspective on the problem.
Later we carry out definition methods, such as verbatims, user persona and empathy maps to gather all the key aspects into more concrete ideas.
surveys
Testimonials
Highlights
Tenants:
The most common problems are: the difficulty in finding a home, the high prices, the shortage of supply and the strong competition when looking for a property. In addition, many mention feeling at a disadvantage compared to real estate companies, who take advantage of the market situation in their favor.
The main factor in choosing a property to rent is the economic value of the rental.
Another common pattern among tenants is the difficulty in resolving conflicts and the lack of support from real estate agents to help resolve them.
Landlords:
The most common problems are: the effort required to carry out the procedures to start renting, the delivery conditions, the resolution of conflicts in the event of damages and the failure to pay rent or urban services.
Owners who choose to rent directly mention saving money and making it easier to resolve conflicts with the tenant as the main factors for renting privately.
Value proposition
To wrap up the research and fully immerse ourselves in designing a solution, we formulate a value proposition for our product. This proposal was devised through the following canvas model.
Research Summary
Before moving on to the next phase of the project, let me summarize the key findings of our research here.
Freshouse is a digital product that provides tenants and owners with all the necessary tools to carry out a home rental efficiently and without the need to resort to intermediaries or third parties that generate additional costs. With Freshouse, both tenants and owners save significant time, money and effort in the rental process, reinventing the traditional way of renting and simplifying the process.
Intuitive
Freshouse should be easy to use without the need for detailed instructions. We use common application patterns to save time for our users
An introduction to the main tasks that can be performed with the application to achieve a better understanding of it.
In this section, we aim to address one of our users' biggest needs: misinformation. We provide advice through articles, explanatory videos, and tutorials, striving for an easy but complete learning experience.
A simple step-by-step guide to getting started as an owner on Freshouse. With guides and links to articles with recommendations.
Rental information
Contracts
Freshouse offers 3 different ways to create contracts: automatic, semi-automatic, and manual.
Automatic: Uses a contract template createdby Freshouse based on rental law.
Semiautomatic: Create your contract interactively with the application.
Manual: Upload your own pre-existing contract.
HI-FI design
