4 ms·

Evaluate My Real Estate Feedback Project

5 points by jcartano 18y ago

jcartano 18y ago
I started this website as a personal project to learn more about ASP.NET MVC. Now that the site is almost fully functional, I actually think it could be pretty useful as a forum to discuss real estate listings. I know major listing sites will not allow user generated content for listings for legal reasons so this could fill that gap. I would love to get feedback and constructive criticism as well as ideas to make the site more useful. Thanks, Joe Cartano
- diN0bot 18y ago
  </p>
  - deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]
JayNeely 18y ago
Questions / Feedback: * Who's the target audience for this? * Why are you launching in eight cities when you don't have critical mass in one or two yet? * Bright lime green: why!? * Street addresses don't make for very interesting / differentiated headlines. Have you thought about alternatives? Can you require a picture with submission that you can thumbnail? I think the main piece of UGC that would really add value to listings are tags. Not for stuff that's already captured in the listing data, like "1 bed", "2 bath", etc. but for more subjective ratings. del.icio.us-like shading of tags to show how many people had tagged a listing with certain qualities would be awesome.
- jcartano 18y ago
  * Who's the target audience for this? The target audience for this is people that want to evaluate the value of an MLS listing. For instance, I see a listing I am interested in on Redfin/Trulia/Zillow, and search for it at Reyalitor. In the comments I can see that somebody has visited the house and it really does not have 3 bedrooms, or there is mold, or in their opinion it is overpriced. Or positive feedback such as a nice view or a good floorplan. My friends and I discuss houses we see online but there is not a good medium to share this information online. * Why are you launching in eight cities when you don't have critical mass in one or two yet? Honestly this is random, but I could scale back to Seattle for now. * Bright lime green: why!? I need to get some css skills * Street addresses don't make for very interesting / differentiated headlines. Have you thought about alternatives? Can you require a picture with submission that you can thumbnail? I have thought about a picture or being able to get a screen grab using ajax. It might get tricky to require a picture since this would result in copy pasting content from other websites. I'll investigate I think the main piece of UGC that would really add value to listings are tags. Not for stuff that's already captured in the listing data, like "1 bed", "2 bath", etc. but for more subjective ratings. del.icio.us-like shading of tags to show how many people had tagged a listing with certain qualities would be awesome. That sounds like an interesting feature. I will look into it. Thanks for the great feedback!
hotpockets 18y ago
Interesting idea (as well as color scheme). I think though that there are too many houses on the market and too few people using your site. Focusing in one place would be good. Personally I would choose detroit, at least you then have a story to tell, you're trying to help out the country. Real-estate startup in seattle? Boring. What story is there about seattle real estate? People love a train wreck (Detroit), and you can leech off those eyeballs.
- jcartano 18y ago
  That is great advice, it is very easy to add locations so I could add some other locations to the mix without much trouble. I started with Seattle since I personally follow the listings there. I'll strongly consider narrowing the focus of the site and work on a decent color scheme as well :) Thanks
vivekamn 18y ago
For ny site based on user feedback, solving the chicken and egg problem is going to be your biggest hurdle. Can you bootstrap the initial reviews from some other source?
tzetzefly 18y ago
Perhaps this is what you were looking for? http://dwellicious.com http://dwellicious.com

5 points by jcartano 18y ago

I started this website as a personal project to learn more about ASP.NET MVC. Now that the site is almost fully functional, I actually think it could be pretty useful as a forum to discuss real estate listings. I know major listing sites will not allow user generated content for listings for legal reasons so this could fill that gap. I would love to get feedback and constructive criticism as well as ideas to make the site more useful. Thanks, Joe Cartano

diN0bot 18y ago
</p>
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]

JayNeely 18y ago

Questions / Feedback: * Who's the target audience for this? * Why are you launching in eight cities when you don't have critical mass in one or two yet? * Bright lime green: why!? * Street addresses don't make for very interesting / differentiated headlines. Have you thought about alternatives? Can you require a picture with submission that you can thumbnail? I think the main piece of UGC that would really add value to listings are tags. Not for stuff that's already captured in the listing data, like "1 bed", "2 bath", etc. but for more subjective ratings. del.icio.us-like shading of tags to show how many people had tagged a listing with certain qualities would be awesome.

jcartano 18y ago
* Who's the target audience for this? The target audience for this is people that want to evaluate the value of an MLS listing. For instance, I see a listing I am interested in on Redfin/Trulia/Zillow, and search for it at Reyalitor. In the comments I can see that somebody has visited the house and it really does not have 3 bedrooms, or there is mold, or in their opinion it is overpriced. Or positive feedback such as a nice view or a good floorplan. My friends and I discuss houses we see online but there is not a good medium to share this information online. * Why are you launching in eight cities when you don't have critical mass in one or two yet? Honestly this is random, but I could scale back to Seattle for now. * Bright lime green: why!? I need to get some css skills * Street addresses don't make for very interesting / differentiated headlines. Have you thought about alternatives? Can you require a picture with submission that you can thumbnail? I have thought about a picture or being able to get a screen grab using ajax. It might get tricky to require a picture since this would result in copy pasting content from other websites. I'll investigate I think the main piece of UGC that would really add value to listings are tags. Not for stuff that's already captured in the listing data, like "1 bed", "2 bath", etc. but for more subjective ratings. del.icio.us-like shading of tags to show how many people had tagged a listing with certain qualities would be awesome. That sounds like an interesting feature. I will look into it. Thanks for the great feedback!

hotpockets 18y ago

Interesting idea (as well as color scheme). I think though that there are too many houses on the market and too few people using your site. Focusing in one place would be good. Personally I would choose detroit, at least you then have a story to tell, you're trying to help out the country. Real-estate startup in seattle? Boring. What story is there about seattle real estate? People love a train wreck (Detroit), and you can leech off those eyeballs.

jcartano 18y ago
That is great advice, it is very easy to add locations so I could add some other locations to the mix without much trouble. I started with Seattle since I personally follow the listings there. I'll strongly consider narrowing the focus of the site and work on a decent color scheme as well :) Thanks

vivekamn 18y ago

For ny site based on user feedback, solving the chicken and egg problem is going to be your biggest hurdle. Can you bootstrap the initial reviews from some other source?

tzetzefly 18y ago

Perhaps this is what you were looking for? http://dwellicious.com http://dwellicious.com