Inspiration
As students currently actively searching for leases, we found that information and resources were few and far between. For many prospective first-time tenants, it can be overwhelming to search for a place to stay. Information and listings are spread between many platforms, with varying degrees of efficiency. For example, Facebook Marketplace doesn't collect a standard set of information, making it difficult to comb through a large number of listings. We hoped to address Kingston's increases in student population by giving landlords and tenants a collective and standardized space to list and find properties.
What it does
GaelsEstate brings together both parties in the Kingston rental market through an online platform. Prospective tenants can search for houses through the standard search or an interactive map function, while landlords or students looking to sublet can post listings in a place where students will actively look into. Unique metrics, such as comparing noise levels, created with smart data differentiate GaelsEstate. GaelsEstate also combines properties from a variety of sites through a web scraper -- the extracted listings will be a better encapsulation of Kingston's housing market. There are also resources for first-time renters looking to learn more about property laws in Ontario.
How we built it
We built the GaelsEstate website in Figma then converted it to HTML and CSS! Calculation functions and the web scraper were made in Python!
Challenges we ran into
A two-person team meant that we had to take over parts that we weren't necessarily familiar with. We're both business majors, so figuring out what exactly we were supposed to do outside of market research was difficult. Alex girlbossed his way through multi-page Figma mockups and Alison died trying to convert his mockups into tangible code.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We're super proud of how GaelsEstate turned out from start to finish -- the process of coming up with an idea (thanks Kun!) and applying design thinking to create a feasible yet fairly in-depth project. We're also proud of our productivity at 2 am despite both being morning people.
What we learned
We've become a stronger team and better understand our dynamic working together. Alison learned what Figma is and Alex learned that he "should never do one of these ever again" (he's lying, we'll be back). Also, he has more respect for front-end and back-end software development (as he should).
What's next for GaelsEstate
We hope to step out of the web-based programming world into mobile development! We also hope to incorporate more ranking-based systems into the search functions and think about how we can prevent malicious listings. Also, we would love to incorporate a communication system between prospective tenants and landlords instead of external links to contact!
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